If schools don’t want Google AI Overviews to appear when students use its flagship Search tool, the company said, they will lose access to Google Search altogether.
Don Ryan/AP/AP
hide caption
Don Ryan/AP/AP
Catch up on what you missed with our Education newsletter, sent weekly.
Google is a big part of the school day for millions of students. It’s not only a search engine. It’s a hub for sharing documents and turning in homework.
An announcement this month makes it clear: Google wants AI to be a part of that education ecosystem.
Many parents do not.
“Parents are angry,” said Jodi Carreon, a mom in Southern California. “They’re very angry.”
When Carreon, who also runs the advocacy group Schools Beyond Screensfirst read that Google was letting schools turn off AI features for students, she was excited. Her group is part of the parent-led movement demanding limits on technology in the classroom.
But even as districts including Los Angeles Unified, Seattle Public Schools and New York City Public Schools recently agreed to bans on AI in the classroom, Google did not. If schools don’t want AI Overviews to appear when students use its flagship Search tool, the company said, they will lose access to Google Search altogether. Even advocates who want less tech in schools know losing the ability to “Google” something will be an issue for teachers.
In a post on XNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Google is using “its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools,” and Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts wrote to Google’s CEO demanding the company reverse its policy.
A baffling move
Tracy Pizzo worked at Google for more than a decade before leaving the company in 2022. Much of her time at the company was focused on education and ethical AI standards. Google’s move this month baffled her, especially coming at a time when young people’s use of AI is under such scrutiny.
She has a theory about why the tech giant is taking this stance: It could be linked to two recent court cases Google fended off in D.C.
Google was sued by big online publishers who said adding AI overview to search negatively affected their business. The publishers sued under antitrust laws, and their argument hinged on convincing the court that AI Overviews was a separate product from Google Search.
“The judge decided that Search and AI are an integrated product,” Pizzo said, and subsequently dismissed the cases. “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.”
When asked for comment, Google directed NPR to its original announcementwhere the company said, “Our goal is simple: provide school leaders the control and confidence to use AI products in classrooms as they see fit.” The company did not respond to additional questions by NPR about any connection between its announcement and recent antitrust cases.
NPR asked antitrust experts about this theory. They weren’t entirely convinced, but also didn’t dismiss it altogether.
The “AI or nothing” approach
In any case, Google’s AI Overviews doesn’t get high marks from some watchdogs.
Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that evaluates how teens interact with technology, recently gave the product an “unacceptable risk” rating. Among other things, Common Sense dinged the tool for unsafe content and citing false information.
The day after the announcement, Google came under fire for another AI product in schools. Parents in North Carolina sued the company after Google’s chatbot, Gemini, helped their 13-year-old daughter plan her suicide and funeral on her school-issued Chromebook.
Even some of Google’s longtime partners are surprised by the company’s current position, including superintendent Hank Thiele in Illinois.
“It may have caused a lot of damage in the trust that Google has built in education,” he said.
Thiele has worked with Google Classroom for almost two decades and says the company has always been a great partner. His district, made up entirely of high school students, is in the process of figuring out AI for its students. As an early adopter of tech in the classroom, he wants to be on top of it with AI.
He said he thinks the company will listen to people’s feedback but they bungled the messaging.
“Google should have just plainly said, ‘Our bad,'” Thiele said. “That would have been the appropriate response to a school.”
The “AI or nothing” approach, as Thiele put it, did not land well.
Edited by Nirvi Shah and Nicole Cohen
Google is a financial supporter of NPR.
Source: www.npr.org
