Somewhat related: did you know that you cannot disable GMail's GenAI usage without disabling the traditional ML powered features, such as smart inbox, which predates LLMs? In this case, Google/Alphabet is conflating GenAI/LLMs with traditional machine learning, so you can't opt out of genai which necessarily requires access to your data by the models, without deactivating the previous non-LLM powered features.

Which I get it, they indeed can use LLMs to improve the previous traditional ML pipeline. However I believe bundling these options together shouldn't be legal and I never expected Google to employ dark patterns such as this one. When I subscribed, these features were provided by traditional ML, perhaps some BERT-like encoder architecture at most, however now I cannot keep that previous functionality if I don't wish to grant LLMs access to my data.

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?

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.

I'm kind of confused by the reaction. Google Search has had a bad reputation among techies for years. On HN it's common to hear that Search is useless or worse than useless, even before AI Overviews. Why is it so important that children have access to such a terrible product in schools?

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.

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.

This plus them discontinuing chromebooks seems like a big opportunity for someone.

I know they’re not marketing to schools yet, but kagi.com is available for libraries. I expect they’ll try to break into the school market eventually.

https://kagi.com/libraries

It’s a good time to break free from Google and try something else. I’ve been using kagi for a couple years and I haven’t looked back.

Not a shill.. I just like the service.

If this truly is just the search engine and not other stuff on the google.com domain like OAuth login, then this seems rather unimportant.

Search is easily Google's least-sticky and most replaceable product. The only reason it gets more usage that other engines like DuckDuckGo and the swathes of other Bing frontends is because it's the default and has the brand appeal for people who don't know better.

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.

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

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.

Perennial reminder: when “Google” does things, what that means is that the two individuals who jointly have a controlling stake in Google, Page and Brin, choose for Google to do these things, or choose not to prevent Google from doing them. Obviously with an exception for things that they genuinely may not have heard about or might not have time for: but that leaves a lot of things. Object persistence is very real: don’t give Page and Brin a pass for things that Musk or Zuckerberg would be excoriated for simply because Page and Brin don’t jump up and down for attention on social media.

AI summaries are listed before the full page of Ads, that is ironically the best thing about it in this stupid dystopia

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

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

If Microsoft pulled this stunt, this post would have 2500 points, but when Google does it 253.

How is this not monopolistic behavior?

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

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

My high schooler is prohibited from using AI in his homework (and pretty good about sticking to that, at least for now).

Probably time to switch him to Kagi. Google Search is pretty bad anyway.

Is this the best ever use of the phrase ‘and nothing of value was lost’? Might be.

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.

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

Schools can just negotiate with kagi for some uni or school deal, right?

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.

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

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.

Oh no! What shall they do?

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?

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 as honestly as possible.

Or maybe more pointedly, get them to even become aware of the difference between home and school, or everyone else's computers and their own.

What do schools need Google for anyway? Had education deteriorated this much already?

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.

> If a school has banned A.I., he [Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google] added, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”

So scummy! Make it sound like the school's decision, rather than Google's.

Blocking ai will only cause the students to get left behind. The ai isn't going away.

good riddance. it is useless anyways

Google really is an evil, enshittified company now. I see it every day when I'm on YouTube with an ad-blocker. "Experiencing interruptions?" Yeah, Google, thanks for fucking with me. If you don't want me viewing your videos, don't make them accessible on the standard protocols.

There are a host of other search engines. I use search.brave.com myself (after leta.mullvad.com was decommissioned).

Students will learn about other search engines, and about how corporations are not your friends. Both good lessons to learn.

Like, what are we even doing as a society?

Wikipedia > Google Why on earth did we let that diseased corporation into our classrooms in the first place?!

The economic elite really want to dumb children down at the same time of juicing their AI numbers by bundling LLMs and searches even when they don't need to be.

Wow, blatant monopoly behavior

win-win

so what? there are alternatives... and who still googles nowadays anyways :)

It's like the signed the "Let's be as evil as possible" pledge around 2016 isn't it. It's not just enshitification, it is evilshitification.

Google gets worse and worse every year.

As usual, the truth is a little less clickbaity. It's just opt-in:

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

> We believe schools should have control over AI in their classrooms and in providing administrators with controls to help them manage their approach. After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.

They've come a long way from 'don't be evil'

For free users: https://archive.is/20261103145613/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

The changed title on this post is problematic.

I really don't like that my original submission "Google Will Turn Off Search for Schools That Reject A.I." from the New York Times got replaced with "Designing responsible AI for learning" PR slop from Google Corporate that doesn't even disclose this limitation.

If the mods are gonna Orwell this, at least take my name off it.

edit: Thanks, mods, for putting it back.

[flagged]

Studies need to be done on how very terrible, bottom 5% of schools perform with all the extra AI help Google can enable. How could they possibly do worse with it running?

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.

It isn't possible for Google to run a websearch query "without AI" and it hasn't been for over 10 years.

Seems reasonable. You can't have a useful search of the modern web without AI.

And this is why Google needs to be split in parts. Ads on one side, or many sides as they have purchased so many ads business that they should be further divided, youtube on another side, search in a different one, etc.

Split monopolies so they stop threatening schools, governments and citizens.