Schools that block Google’s A.I. will lose student access to its search engine (nytimes.com)

164 pointsby ceejayoz2 hours ago135 comments

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/educatio...

mawadev 16 minutes ago

I'm confused, so google made websites indirectly unusable with all the advertisement incentives and then the AI summary came that usually just summarizes some reddit posts and now they subtly and indirectly block universities from using their entire search engine because unis block the AI part of search? What incentive does google even have on presenting the ai summary?

Does anyone even understand the world currently? Its so absurd to me, why does it exist to begin with and why is this drama appearing?

ChrisLTD 4 minutes ago

I'm guessing it's less about the AI in search and more about making sure kids are exposed to the larger Gemini ecosystem

lukeschlather 12 minutes ago

I think we've reached a point where reading the AI summary (which I think is Gemini Flash Lite) is probably going to be more reliable than actually reading the top 10 search results. The top 10 search results were often blogspam even in a pre-AI world. I feel like either you trust Google to retrieve information or you don't (and Gemini has problems but so does Google Search, and are you really sure the latter is worse than the former?)

It has been over a decade since Google Search was anything but a machine-learning powered word association engine. I miss old Google Search but it's dead and I trust Gemini more than what Search has turned into.

Forgeties79 11 minutes ago

All we’re doing is adding another layer between us and the information. Google flash is still pulling on the same poor information. But it’s not as good at discerning what is useful and what is not as we are (people going way too far out on a limb outside of their domain expertise not withstanding, which is another part of the problem and why this stuff can be dangerous)

jimbokun 10 minutes ago

Can’t access the article, but would assume the schools are more concerned about students having Google AI doing their work for them, rather than concern about using the AI summary for search results?

hamdingers 10 minutes ago

Why would a summary of unreliable blogspam results be more reliable than the blogspam results themselves?

I find it easier to recognize bullshit from its source vs an LLM's confident and well written regurgitation of it.

zamadatix 6 minutes ago

The summary isn't limited to the top 10 search results as sources so it need not be only based on blogspam like the first page of search results is/was. Whether or not it's actually better or not is still its own debate beside that point though.

exmadscientist 4 minutes ago

I consistently get the impression that Gemini is better at sorting through the trash than whatever ranks SERPs these days is.

Which is not a good look for the Search teams/execs.

convolvatron 3 minutes ago

at least before I was able a find a blog post or a discussion or fleck of documentation. Now I've pretty much stopped using Google because I've wasted so much time having been assured by Gemini that something is entirely possible when in fact its very much not. now I have to dig to find the canonical reference for a question, at least SEO people didn't spend a lot of energy trying to front rust crates.

This is all very tragic. we built a magic network where we could stash all the worlds information and access it from anywhere, except its been trashed by people with other interests trying to get between us and what we'd like to see.

nphardon 12 minutes ago

Hopefully the schools that reject ai use in the classroom are savvy enough to pivot to an alternative search engine, easy workaround for them. Google is pulling Philip Morris moves and we should all abandon them.

christophilus 8 minutes ago

Kind of makes sense, given how integrated Gemini summaries are to Google Search, last I checked, but ultimately, this might be a good thing. I'm 100% in favor of breaking Google's monopoly one way or another. Brave and DuckDuckGo and Kagi are all fine alternatives worthy of more prominence.

Shorel 42 minutes ago

So, win-win and more traffic for Duck Duck Go?

That's how I read it nowadays, as Google search results are in a quality going down trend.

verdverm 23 minutes ago

DDG is trying to be too much like Google now, with the Ai summaries and chat bot.

Actual search results are still bad. Seems to be a trend across most engines

anonova 16 minutes ago

DDG has an entrypoint with AI features disabled at https://noai.duckduckgo.com/

runarberg 5 minutes ago

[delayed]

Alexandros84 25 minutes ago

Isn't Google Search a form of AI in its own right? I mean with RankBrain?

runarberg 18 minutes ago

No. Not in the contemporary common meaning of the term “AI”.

5 years ago you would be technically correct, but today “AI” is only a subset of technologies that used to be included in the term. Namely Large Language Models, Text To Image Models, Text To Video Models, and other forms of generative AI that take in a user text prompt. These other types of statistical models are now simply called Machine Learning Algorithms.

Very few people today say “AI”, and mean “any type of Machine Learning Algorithm”.

ortusdux an hour ago

I've heard anecdotal stories from MS-365 users that say it feels handicapped without Copilot. One govt worker said they noticed a marked change in Word spell-checking after they had to block all AI on their systems.

skeledrew an hour ago

This is great! Push more people towards DuckDuckGo, etc.

account42 an hour ago

Hopefully this will backfire and end with kids learning to use other search engines.

Aboutplants 5 minutes ago

I legitimately can’t see where this isn’t what happens

messh an hour ago

How is this not monopolistic behavior?

silverFork an hour ago

Their search engine is now integrated with Ai. So either google would need to block the search engine or the school if they don't want Ai. Take your pick.

ceejayoz an hour ago

That's the same argument Microsoft made with Internet Explorer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

silverFork 14 minutes ago

A lot of these schools use tablets though. The kids probably use their phones so more likely to be google. Higher grades though use laptops I think so more likely Microsoft then. So far internet explorer is not integrated with Ai but microsoft copilot though is 100% ai and can be used for search.

ceejayoz 13 minutes ago

I'm not talking about Copilot, I'm talking about IE6 back in the 90s, where Microsoft took the "oh woe is us it'll be so hard to undo the deep unnecessary integration we built for this very purpose" tactic.

silverFork 5 minutes ago

I agree with that view point.. yup

brlewis 38 minutes ago

Obviously they have at least a back-end search service that isn't tangled up with an LLM. When Gemini says "Searching the web..." it isn't chatbots all the way down. Google just needs to make a human UI for the same search Gemini uses.

silverFork 13 minutes ago

It depends if you ask it a question or simply specify an object I think.

arctic-true 39 minutes ago

Yeah, I read this and immediately thought “tying arrangement.” But they’re not CHARGING separately for search and AI, so I doubt a tying theory would hold up in court.

PowerElectronix 30 minutes ago

Schools will ditch the AI AND the search engine, too. Masterfully played, google.

gdulli an hour ago

A big part of this era is a shift to de-anonymizing all search, research, etc. That should be seen as its own problem separate from one's feelings about AI.

tikkabhuna an hour ago

It will be interesting to see what search engine students start using. I still use Google because that's what I used at school.

6thbit an hour ago

I think that's the largest shortsightedness of google's choice.

All those kids will get used to whatever other search they can use.

stetrain 32 minutes ago

You can tell that AI features in user-facing software are good and popular because of the way that companies have to keep forcing them onto users even if they try to opt out.

vinyl7 31 minutes ago

Its all very inorganic and forced. This only fuels the idea of it being a bubble that will pop (not if it will pop)

tlogan an hour ago

Very interesting approach. Basically, you can no longer use Google Search as a way to discover and learn about a subject the old-school way.

I guess the point here is that Google thinks schools need to start using AI, and that all this "no AI in schools" talk is nonsense.

miltonlost 42 minutes ago

Google thinks forcing schools to use AI to fuel search will give them great cash. You have far too kind a view on what Google hopes AI will do to schools and not nearly a cynical economic one.

gmueckl 42 minutes ago

Of course. They have a bridge^W^WAI to sell to you.

This is attempted coercion, plain and simple.

varjag 38 minutes ago

KPIs have to be met

gmueckl 9 minutes ago

Is it this time of year at Google?

ceejayoz 6 minutes ago

Isn't it always that time of year at a large corp?

watwut 41 minutes ago

Google thinks that will be more profitable if they force schools to use AI. They do not think "no AI in schools" talk is nonsense, they think "no AI in schools" is bad for their bottom line, somehow.

10111001 41 minutes ago

> Very interesting approach. Basically, you can no longer use Google Search as a way to discover and learn about a subject the old-school way.

If by "interesting" you mean "abusive and coercive."

> I guess the point here is that Google thinks schools need to start using AI, and that all this "no AI in schools" talk is nonsense.

Explain that more please: whose talk is "nonsense"? Google's? Parents'? Schools'?

'Cause it sounds Google is saying this:

> You silly parents and educators, you thought you set educational policy for your students? No, we actually do. Your choices will conform to our business plans of the moment, or we will make your life so painful and difficult that you will "consent" to our demands.

> Did we mention our motto is "don't be evil"? We live our values every day.

walt_grata 40 minutes ago

that is an absolutely repugnant take from anyone at Google (I will not attribute this to a legal entity that cannot think, a human being made this call and is accountable for it). They are not educators and should have absolutely zero say in how schools do things.

throwitaway222 38 minutes ago

I mean technically I didn't even have Google search when I went to school.

Forgeties79 27 minutes ago

There are a lot of things we didn’t have when we were younger that are far more necessary today than they were then.

swatcoder 23 minutes ago

> I guess the point here is that Google thinks schools need to start using AI, and that all this "no AI in schools" talk is nonsense.

More generously, it seems like Google just doesn't see a justification for maintaining an AI-free search platform alongside their AI-integrated vision for search.

For a smaller vendor in a competitive market, this decision wouldn't read like coercion. It would just be a roadmap statement that might draw some customers in and drive some towards competitors. You would expect a business to be able to make that kind of decision (a prima facie reasonable one) about how they'll invest in their products and the support infrastructure that surrounds them.

What this story really exposes is how dependent schools have been made on Google specifically and how the idea of independently making choices against their roadmap feels infeasible. It feels like a monopoly to administrators and the public even if it isn't formally marked as such by regulatory agencies.

That itself is worth more people thinking about.

Brian_K_White 6 minutes ago

kagi should swoop in and offer some sort of deal. Get people used to search without ads or influence or data collection or any incentive other than getting you what you asked for.

Aboutplants 32 minutes ago

Oh no! What shall they do?

GolfPopper 23 minutes ago

Perhaps other big tech companies can also threaten the public with a good time?

MetalBreaksAndB 2 hours ago

I wonder if schools will manage to filter this. Probably on windows , but I'm less sure on chromebooks.

xhkkffbf an hour ago

The students can just log in with a generic Gmail account using a incognito tab.

ceejayoz an hour ago

That's often blocked on school-provided devices.

demo4567 an hour ago

good riddance. it is useless anyways

nilamo an hour ago

This is great! Google search has been declining in usefulness so much, that it shouldn't be used by students anyway. And then there's the shitty ai summaries, which students definitely shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it's accurate.

settsu 7 minutes ago

Like, what are we even doing as a society?

0c3ca83 an hour ago

For responsibile learning, focus on pencil, paper, and books.

mym1990 an hour ago

Very narrow minded approach, why not use the tools available? Experimentation is one of the best ways to learn, breaking stuff is a great way to learn. Doesn’t mean that people won’t fall into some traps along the way, but that’s kind of the case with anything.

This is along the lines of “for responsible parenting, never let your kids out of sight”.

0c3ca83 an hour ago

Yes, doing things by hand is another thing to prioritize.

A good deal of research shows that most learning happens when you recognize and back off from an incorrect solution on your own, without outside guidance. So, the key to a good learning environment is setting up scenarios where the backround information is present, and answers aren't out of reach, but there's a bit of struggle to find them.

This is also how you learn to learn, and develop grit. Grit is one of the best predictors of success.

Technology that gives answers or guides heavily is harmful to the learning process.

ceejayoz an hour ago

> Experimentation is one of the best ways to learn, breaking stuff is a great way to learn.

Breaking stuff sometimes is a way to learn "don't break that".

Broken children can be tough to fix.

walt_grata an hour ago

Its also an approach backed up by research and studdies. I still cannot believe there are people in education that can maintain that humans under 25 arent done neurologically developing ans have issues managing distractions and that tech in the classroom is a good idea (outside of classes deliberately teaching technology)

watwut 39 minutes ago

Allowing teachers to experiment somewhat more would be great. It would be motivating for teachers and good for students in the long run.

Centrally forcing schools to do what is good for corporation is not experimentation.

Shorel 38 minutes ago

I love old school research using books, however the advantages of connected information cannot be understated.

We could do much better with access to online libraries (which don't exist, apart from the very limited sample from these books accessible using Wikipedia).

Current (blogs and articles and forums) online resources provide information at a rate book search just can't provide.

reaperducer 22 minutes ago

We put men on the moon with pencil and paper.

Trillions and trillions of dollars of technology later, and the best we can do now is fly by and wave.

shevy-java 22 minutes ago

Google now acts as a mafia. Why does a democracy allow rogue corporations blackmail schools and universities? That can only happen because a mafia runs the USA right now - otherwise that would have already shut down.

I think it is time to do the only logical thing here - and end Google. Nobody needs that monster company anyway.

TazeTSchnitzel an hour ago

This comes off as comically evil. Disabling the AI summaries in search results is trivial, so them refusing to do so and blocking search entirely feels like a blatant attempt at coercion. Isn't it an abuse of monopoly power?

nsoam an hour ago

That would make sense if the AI summaries from Search were a different product.

jdiff an hour ago

These summaries have been trivially bolted on, they're entirely self-contained, they can be easily turned off.

nsoam an hour ago

Some results also have thumbnails. They could easily be turned off. That doesn’t mean thumbnails are a different product, or an abuse of monopoly power.

Hamuko an hour ago

And sometimes they just fail to generate, while the search still shows the usual results.

padge01 13 minutes ago

win-win