Google tells schools: take AI in Search or lose Google entirely
Why is Google cutting off Search from AI-free schools? Here are some theories
Google now requires schools that want to block AI Overviews to give up Google Search altogether, and parents and educators are furious. A former Google education lead suggests the policy may shield the company's recent antitrust win, where a judge ruled Search and AI are one integrated product. New York City's mayor and Senator Ed Markey have pushed back, and longtime school partners say the trust Google built over two decades has taken real damage.
Now if Google were to provide an off switch for schools only … that's evidence that they can be separated. And that undermines the win they just had in court.
- tomcatfish
Google is not "cutting off Search from AI-free schools". They're refusing to supply AI-free Search. It takes less theorizing to understand if you phrase it this way.
Everyone complained there should be a way to disable AI, and that it should be on by default. For some reason (curiosity still makes sense here), Google did some 'malicious compliance' and added the AI switch-off without making a new version of search, and disabled AI by default.
My personal theory is some sort of moral liability thing, where they're hoping you blame your school district and tell them to switch platforms, so that if/when they don't, it's "their fault", not Google's.
- qzw
I keep hearing AI companies say the demand is outstripping their supply and they need to build more data centers right now. And then I also see and read about how every company is cramming AI down everyone's throats in every product whether or not it's useful and/or wanted. I've used enough AI to see that it's revolutionary, but I'm also old enough to see the parallel to the dotcom days.
- qzw
It's interesting that in the lawsuit mentioned in the article, Google's defense was that they can't separate the AI overview from search as they are one product. That's almost the exact same argument Microsoft made in its antitrust defense about bundling IE. They went so far as to shoehorn IE into all kinds of system processes that were fine without IE before. But their argument didn't work and they were forced to offer the option to remove IE. But ironically, now the same argument is working for Google, despite the obvious solution of just having a setting to hide the AI overview.
- CobaltFire
Just wanted to thank you for using the text only link! This is the type of thing we should use and encourage.
I have a list somewhere I need to dig out of these types of link modifications available from when I was deployed. They were the only way to read news.
- takeda
It's a bluff trying to push to schools against blocking AI.
The problem is that Google isn't the only search engine. It isn't even the best search engine anymore.
I really think this could be a great opportunity for Kagi to enter and show how good search can actually be.
- nfriedly
It's not like Google is the only search engine out there. Duck Duck Go has a toggle for the main search page, and a sub-domain where it's off by default: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
- overtone1000
I wonder why these districts don't simply pivot to noai.duckduckgo.com. It's my default search engine and has served me well.
- iloveyoutwo
Google loves these dark patterns they do it everywhere.