一个小学的IT管理员于两周前前往Google的支持论坛
行政官写道：“这似乎对我们试图教的东西适得其反。” “学生需要机会浏览搜索结果，检查来源，并得出自己的结论，而不是在他们甚至开始之前被交给AI生成的综合体。”
Google没有任何人对此关注做出回应，多年来这一关注一直浮出水面。 但来自三个地区的对应人员也表示了同样的挫折感，并指出他们正在或考虑阻挠大赦国际概览，以取代官方的“关闭”转换。 他们的专门知识即将需要。
Google 宣布在星期二表示拒绝为学校提供禁用AI Overviews的选项。 相反，从明年开始，学校将不得不完全封锁搜索渠道，以消除这一特征。 这一决定令美国各地的教育工作者、家长和技术研究人员感到震惊。
称 Dominic Johnson是俄勒冈州一个名为“Oswego湖家长负责技术”的社区团体的一部分。 “这一举动使已经确定AI的校区更加困难
Google没有回应征求意见的请求。 但公司在公开回应分享到X的争议时认为，学校现在会有“更多选择，而不是更少的选择”，因为搜索、其Gemini聊天机和Gemini Notebook工具将于明年默认关闭。 管理员可以提供一、二或所有三种服务。
然而，对于学校和家长来说，Google认为AI Overviews和名为AI Mode的配套功能与传统的搜索体验是不可分割的。 在2023年和去年，它们分别将发布，Gemini或ChatGPT等AI聊天器的功能直接带入搜索结果。
“孩子们已经在利用这些搜索栏摘要来跳过真正的努力，“更糟糕的是，这些AI的快照经常犯错误，并发表虚假事实，年轻学生视之为绝对真理。”
人工智能生成的回复令人着迷于阅读，而且往往足以信任，引发教室以外的头痛。 维基百科，新闻网站，教育工具都因为人们依赖概览而失去了人类访问者。 Google使用同样的bots爬网进行搜索和AI产品，使得出版商无法选择退出其内容用于后者。
Google促使AI Overviews成为搜索的显著部分，上星期，母公司Alphabet的股票遭受了他们最糟糕的单日销售，在该公司报告搜索广告销售比预期弱后，销量就消除了5万亿美元的市场价值。 大事业？虽然有些专家认为这种低迷只是暂时的
对学校来说，搜寻的两难处境可能刚刚开始。 洛杉矶统一称仍在审查Google公告的潜在影响。 一些教育技术专家认为，学校应该完全放弃Google搜索，或者至少做更好的工作来教导学生质疑AI答案的有效性。
称 Stephen Aguilar共同领导南加州大学的基因AI和社会中心。 “许多计划可能会加速
父母的倡导者也计划推动各区去其他地方寻找。 称 Karolle Rabarison是一位政策和通讯战略家，他协助领导华盛顿特区的“超越屏幕的学校”。 “这已经行不通了。
“研究”拒绝
Google让学校禁用AI Overviews，称 Nicole Kerson是一位前高级Google搜索产品经理，他经营AI战略公司Collected Company。 “很难维持这样的产品。”
Microsoft提供Google Chrome扩展，让用户在Bing搜索中关闭AI生成的摘要。 称是「愤怒、侮辱和可笑的」
学校没有正式的方法去禁用AI Overviews，就转向技术工作变通，包括修改搜索URL和采用浏览器扩展，改变Google结果的出现方式。 弗吉尼亚的费尔法克斯县公立学校最近开发了自己的扩展。 但是，如果Google改变其搜索结果的交付方式，这些漏洞可能会停止运行。
较小的搜索引擎，如注重隐私的DuckDuckGo，看到了从受Google挫折的学校赢得商业的机会。 「我不希望很快看到Google风格的‘DuckDuckGo教室'
2024年联邦裁决Google非法维持其搜索垄断后，公司被命令与竞争对手共享某些搜索数据和服务，并放松对其产品分销的限制。 但这项工作远远落后于计划，原因是正在进行的法律争端使旨在监督补救办法的独立委员会减慢。 包括美国参议员伯尼·桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)在内的几位立法者批评Google对学校的立场
研究和辩论
研究进入学校的新AI工具的效果的研究表明，根据一年前斯坦福对研究的审查，这些工具是否在侵蚀学生发展诸如批判性思维等技能的机会。 根据Google本身进行的一项调查，每四个青少年中就有三个人每周报告使用AI，但只有大约一半的人说他们双倍检查其输出的准确性。 与此同时，华盛顿大学在圣路易斯最近的一项研究发现，只有大约42%的AI Overviews可以使用其中包含的引文进行充分核实。 Google有称概览经过严格的测试，并不断改进。
Google 称在回应最近关于AI Overviews的怒吼时，计划在未来几个月内给发布一个学生的新功能，称为Guided Learning. 其想法是指导用户寻找信息，而不是立即提供答案。 校对：Soup
有些研究者已经质疑《指导学习》会有多有效，Aguilar认为Guilard Learning是Google为保持它在美国教室中已经占据的位置而做出的又一次尝试，其中Google动力的Chromebook笔记本电脑，Google课堂学习软件，Search，和YouTube是常见的。
Aguilar 称说：“ 但不应该通过公司发表非常自私的言论，因为公司对AI投入很大。
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Two weeks ago, an IT administrator for an elementary-middle school took to Google’s support forums requesting a way to block students from seeing AI Overviews—the chatbot-generated answers at the top of search results.
“This seems counterproductive to what we're trying to teach,” the administrator wrote. “Students need opportunities to navigate search results, examine sources, and draw their own conclusions rather than being handed an AI-generated synthesis before they've even started.”
No one from Google responded to the concern, which has been bubbling up for years. But counterparts from three districts voiced similar frustration and pointed to workarounds they were employing or considering to block AI Overviews in lieu of an official “off” switch. Their expertise is about to be in demand.
Google announced on Tuesday that it is declining to provide schools an option to disable AI Overviews. Instead, starting next year, schools will have to block access to search altogether to get rid of the feature. The decision has stunned educators, parents, and technology researchers across the US.
“We were flabbergasted,” says Dominique Johnson, part of an Oregon community group called Lake Oswego Parents For Responsible Technology. “This move makes things even more difficult for school districts that have determined AI is harmful to foundational learning.”
Google didn’t respond to a request for comment. But in a public response to the controversy shared on X, the company contended that schools will now have “more choice, not less” because search, its Gemini chatbot, and Gemini Notebook tool will be off by default starting next year. Administrators can enable one, two, or all three services.
The issue for schools and parents, though, is that Google considers AI Overviews and a companion feature called AI Mode inseparable from the traditional search experience. Respectively launched in 2023 and last year, they bring the functionality of AI chatbots, such as Gemini or ChatGPT, directly into search results.
“Kids are already using these search-bar summaries to skip real effort, pulling instant math answers and letting AI write their essays,” Johnson says. “To make matters worse, these AI snapshots frequently make mistakes and output false facts, which younger students take as absolute truth.”
The AI-generated responses are tempting to read and often good enough to trust, triggering headaches beyond classrooms. Wikipedia, news websites, and education tools have lost human visitors as people rely on overviews. Google uses the same bots to crawl the web for its search and AI products, making it impossible for publishers to opt out of their content being used for the latter.
Google’s push to make AI Overviews a prominent part of search has already come at a cost. Last week, shares of parent company Alphabet suffered their worst single-day selloff, erasing half a trillion dollars in market value after the company reported weaker-than-expected search ad sales. A big cause? Increased usage of AI Overviews and AI Mode, which aren’t packed with many ads yet—although some experts believe the slump will only be temporary.
For schools, the dilemma over search may be just beginning. While several districts WIRED contacted didn’t respond to requests for comment, Los Angeles Unified says it is still reviewing the potential implications of Google’s announcement. Some education technology experts argue that schools should abandon Google search altogether, or at least do a better job teaching students to question the validity of AI answers.
“Under-resourced districts will grit their teeth and say, ‘we don’t have the capacity to dig in our heels and not use Google,’” says Stephen Aguilar, who coleads University of Southern California’s Center for Generative AI and Society. “A lot are likely going to accelerate plans they already have to teach students about this new digital literacy.”
Parent advocates also plan to push districts to look elsewhere. “This move just continues a well-established pattern of big tech companies pushing products into classrooms,” says Karolle Rabarison, a policy and communications strategist who helps lead Schools Beyond Screens in Washington, DC. “It’s not going to work any more.”
“Ludicrous” Refusal
Tech industry veterans disagree about how difficult it would be for Google to let schools disable AI Overviews without affecting the rest of Search. “It’s a question of whether they’re committed to maintaining two versions of search in the long run,” says Nicole Kerson, a former senior Google Search product manager who runs the AI strategy firm Collected Company. “It's very hard to maintain a forked product like that.”
Microsoft offers a Google Chrome extension that lets users turn off AI-generated summaries in Bing search. Adeel Khan, a former teacher and principal who now runs MagicSchool, which provides AI chatbots for students and teachers, says it is “infuriating, insulting, and ludicrous” that Google isn’t doing something similar.
Without an official way to disable AI Overviews, schools have turned to technical workarounds, including modifying search URLs and adopting browser extensions that change how Google results appear. Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia recently developed its own extension. But these loopholes could stop functioning if Google changes how its search results are delivered.
Smaller search engines, such as the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, see an opportunity to win business from schools frustrated with Google. “I wouldn't expect to see a Google-style ‘DuckDuckGo Classroom’ anytime soon, but ideally, we'll have special resources just for educators looking to make a switch,” says spokesperson Allison Goodman.
Following a federal ruling in 2024 that Google illegally maintained its search monopoly, the company was ordered to share certain search data and services with rivals and loosen restrictions on how its products are distributed. But the effort is well behind schedule, thanks to ongoing legal disputes slowing the independent committee meant to oversee the remedies. The AI Overviews issue could prompt fresh scrutiny as several lawmakers, including US Senator Bernie Sanders, criticized Google’s stance toward schools.
Research and Debate
Studies examining the effects of the new AI tools entering schools have raised concerns about whether they are eroding opportunities for students to develop skills such as critical thinking, according to a Stanford review of the research as of a year ago. According to a survey conducted by Google itself, three in four teenagers report using AI weekly, but only about half say they double check its outputs for accuracy. A recent study by Washington University in St. Louis, meanwhile, found that only about 42 percent of AI Overviews could be fully verified using the citations they contained. Google has said overviews undergo rigorous testing and are continually improving.
In its response to the recent furor over AI Overviews, Google said it plans to launch a new feature for students in the coming months called Guided Learning. The idea is to coach users to find information rather than provide them with an immediate answer. “We believe AI products should support ‘productive struggle’—enabling students to be actively challenged without getting so overwhelmed that they give up,” Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president for education wrote in the company’s Tuesday blog post.
Some researchers are already questioning how effective Guided Learning will be, arguing it won’t be as natural as working with a human tutor. Aguilar views Guided Learning as another attempt by Google to maintain the position it already occupies in American classrooms, where Google-powered Chromebook laptops, Google Classroom learning software, Search, and YouTube are commonplace.
“There’s a kernel of truth in saying we have to prepare students for a world where AI is ubiquitous,” Aguilar says, “but it shouldn’t be through a company making a very self-serving pronouncement because it’s heavily invested in AI.”
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