Only a few days ago the Atlantic reported that Google had refused to allow American schools an AI opt-out. theatlantic.com/technol…
Well, that seems to have has changed a bit (not sure if this applies globally yet or just to Amerika). The new default will be AI off, BUT you can’t use Google Search!
Get that: no search without AI! The rationale seems to be that, for Google anyway, “Search and AI are deeply integrated”.
But for some educators (many? all?) search without AI assistance is pedagogically sound because there is still ‘friction’ in the learning (you can’t just copy the search results, they are raw material, but AI search gives you a well-formed synppsis).
Meanwhile, Google is supposedly bringing a new tool to the party, ‘Guided Learning’ that will ‘assist’ students in their use of AI (i.e. assistance on using the assistant!) and, no, you can’t turn GL off!
The story on this is here: aieducator.tools (scroll down to the headline ‘Schools will Lose Google Search if they say no to Google AI’.
This is one of those externalities that affects (limits, distorts) the choices open to education (ike budgets or choices about curriculum content). To what extent is Google – a private, commercial corporation – taking control of the classroom? We have moved far beyond the folksy startup culture of circa 1990-2010. “Don’t be evil” was just a youthful feeling now discarded.