The organisation also announced a series of new AI products for classrooms and schools as well as more ways for teachers and schools to limit or restrict use of those AI tools. Students using Google software in the classroom will not be allowed to access the company’s search engine unless their school system also opts in to artificial intelligence tools, the tech giant said on Tuesday.
Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.
Phillips noted that the company will share more specifics with schools in the coming months. The company has been facing pushback from educators, child development experts, and parents over the use of its technology in schools, with the backlash heating up since it announced in August that it had turned on its Gemini chatbot for many K-12 students who use Google Classroom, according to a report by the Associated Press (AP).
As per reports, the company said that practice would no longer be the default option for school administrators and that opting out of AI tools would also mean losing access to Google search. “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,” Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager of education, said in a blogpost . “Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on,” he added. “Our goal is simple: provide school leaders the control and confidence to use AI products in classrooms as they see fit,” he said. In a comment to the New York Times, Chris Phillips said that there is no Google Search without AI. “Search and AI are deeply integrated,” said Phillips. A school-wide ban on AI would mean that students “will not have access to search, and they will see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available”, he told the Times.
