Astana, 4 November, . Early next year Google will by default turn off pupils’ access to its AI services and search, leaving school administrators to switch them on, the company announced.
The restriction applies to accounts of pupils from first to twelfth grade and to Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search; schools will be able to enable each service separately. The company says the decision follows consultations with schools, teachers, researchers and regulators. Google’s vice president for education, Chris Phillips, warned that search and AI are deeply integrated: a school that blocks AI entirely will also switch off search for its pupils. For schoolwork, AI Mode and AI Overviews will give step-by-step guidance instead of ready answers.
In Kazakhstan, meanwhile, the AI tutor in schools is being expanded. According to Real Digital, the school pilot ran in 10 rural schools, has covered 50 since 3 November, and another 300 will join from 8 January.
What it means: The largest supplier of school services is handing schools the decision on whether to let children use AI, and the research cited by Real Digital shows that a tutor that gives hints helps, while handing out ready answers harms independence.
Who benefits: Schools and parents, who get a choice; pupils, if AI teaches them to think rather than doing the work for them; how Google school accounts work in Kazakhstan is not specified in the reports.
Background: Real Digital cites an experiment in Turkey with almost a thousand pupils: after ordinary GPT-4 was switched off, the group scored 17% lower in the exam than the control group.
