As we discussed last week, Google has gone full mob boss in their drive to ram AI down our throats — even the children! Google has a lot of products used in schools, from (relatively) inexpensive Chromebooks to the assignment app Classroom to the company’s dominant namesake search engine. Since Google now relentlessly embeds their Gemini AI into all their platforms, parents and teachers have been voicing reasonable, legitimate concerns about kids’ access to AI. At the very least, they wanted schools to have the option to set parameters, up to and including completely banning the AI functions on Google products. To which Google responded last week by announcing that starting in 2027, schools will be able to set these parameters… but at the cost of losing access to Google Search altogether. Well, parents and teachers are no longer voicing concerns, so much as lambasting Google for what they deem to be blatant “extortion.” Good.
Jen Atay, a 51-year-old teacher in Hawaii, lambasted Google’s approach, saying: “When the software is free, you are the product, and it is inappropriate for Google to test or develop AI with minors. This should not be allowed at all.”
A 44-year-old father of two boys in Amissville, Virginia, said he worries that “AI will weaken people’s ability to think critically. I use AI in my work, but it would not be effective if I did not have well over a decade of experience under my belt. Even the best models are often flat-out wrong in their responses.”
“These tools are not something that should be introduced to children at such a young age. I’m hopeful that a Democratic Congress will force the adoption of legislation that will protect our schools from corporate malfeasance such as this. This threat from Google is nothing but extortion and it should be treated as such,” he added.
Similarly, Eyla Whitemoon, a mother and educator based in Kernville, California, said: “By infiltrating or ‘partnering’ with our institutions, Google and Meta et al, created a false dependency and our starved public education system happily merged with their ilk. And just like any good mob boss, drug dealer or capitalist minion, these companies got society hooked on their products and now are raising the cost of their supply … My heart aches for what our children won’t experience in a future where AI is in charge and the mega technoautocrats sit in their bunkers and hide.”
Meanwhile, a 64-year-old educator based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said: “Thankfully, after having to revamp all teaching in response to AI, Gen Z has begun appreciating what they stand to lose on account of surrendering their cognitive skills to AI. There are alternative search engines to Google and those will now be what we turn to. Teachers and students alike detest the tech industry’s demand that we kiss their feet and give ourselves up to be their peons.”
Others questioned why schools should depend on Google at all.
An 84-year-old retiree and mother in Maryland, said: “Google decided to follow the evil path to riches. When they started, they were great. Today they are simply evil money grubbers … Schools should tell Google to go pound sand and simply have kids use DuckDuckGo or one of the other search engines … There is nothing Google offers that is not available from some other source.”
Rachel Dominguez, a 42-year-old parent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, also suggested that schools turn to academic databases instead of relying on Google Search.
“Seeing as how Google Search has turned into an AI slop-first service, maybe it’s better that the kids learn how to use databases such as Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and arXiv. Most school districts have subscriptions to these services, and students learning to use them would be better prepared for college. A trip to the media center is not some abnormal chore … That is, if the librarian still has a job in the first place,” she said.
Yeah, the complete dismantling of critical thinking that AI has the potential to will most definitely usher in is nothing short of frightening. And it’s not like critical thinking was exactly in solid standing before AI came along, you know? I’m chuffed to hear the Michigan educator claim that her Gen Z students actually *want* to protect their right to learn without the (often factually incorrect) shortcut of AI. And I can’t help it, I LOVE the Maryland octogenarian who’s advocating for people to “tell Google to go pound sand.” Pass it on!
Once again, here are instructions for how to make DuckDuckGo your default search engine.
From CB: Google has been throttling search results for independent sites like ours. If you set us as a preferred source in Google, even if you don’t use it much, it helps. Just click the box on this link. You don’t have to hit save.
photos credit: IMAGO/Hindustan Times/Avalon, POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com, Getty Images
My husband raised the alarm about this over 10 years ago when all of a sudden our young kids (at the time) had to use school chrome books, Google Classroom, etc. There was no option, we were just required to do it. My husband said it was a long term strategy by Google to give free software and Chromebooks at first in order to start collecting data on these kids and create a system where the schools relied on Google in order to function. Well, he was right. It sucks and I hope the pushback makes the schools make big changes. Unfortunately Google is basically all any of the public schools have used and it will be difficult and expensive to change. I hope this congress can make that happen.
Not enough people listen to the warnings to change this. I despair how many of my friends, family, and coworkers have ceded all, even the most minimal research activity and critical thinking to AI. When I voice my concerns, it’s like they have some kind of mental filter where they can’t even hear me or come up with a response and they just change the topic.
AI sucks. As an English teacher, it’s an absolute scourge to student critical thinking and writing. We have had to go to a lockdown browser and do all writing in class because cheating is so rampant. In fact, I find google docs completely unusable because of gemini being forced on me. I would go back to MS Word for writing, but now MS Word is a subscription service, and apparently unreliable now with the Microsoft outage. It’s a tough time to be trying to teach young people how to write. I can’t even ask students to bring an outline to class to write from because they’ll just AI the outline.
I am in a job where they are currently training AI to take over my work. I don’t know what companies think they are doing. Are they really so naive to think these AI companies are going to leave the cost savings of laid off workers in the company coffers?!!? Nope. Once the companies are dependent on AI they will be over the barrel and the costs will rachet up.
Is there a world in which the response could be, “win the battle lose the war” and have everyone start using duckduckgo? It is on my phone and laptop and I recommend it.