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Comment by SeanAnderson | Hacker News Reader

I haven't felt as concerned about this news article as others.

IME, schools really don't have a good grasp on what AI means in relationship to them and what policies would result in better outcomes.

I work in the ed tech parent-teacher communication space. We offer automatic translations of communication to other languages via Google Translate. Google Translate uses AI. Schools come to us and tell us we need to disable all our AI features. We do. Then they freak out asking where their feature went. We explain. They say they don't want to lose translations they just don't want to deal with "AI stuff"

It's not clear to me if this stance from Google is a new thing. Did they recently add AI to search and are trying to use bundling behaviors to incept AI into areas it wouldn't be? Or did policy recently become rabid against the use of AI without fully appreciating the ask and ramifications? Both?

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Schools want to control whether Gemini and other generative AI is available to students.

I'm a middle school science teacher. We've already moved much of our work to paper because of this issue, but there is so much good science that should be done using computer simulations and other tools. So I do have computers out for some lessons.

So now, on a lesson where a computer is out, a student can instantly type in a question on the Google search bar, get an AI answer, and write it down with zero thoughts traveling through their heads.

Yes, redesign the lesson. Yes, if computers are out don't ask questions that an AI can answer. But you know what? Instead of needing to cut out everything that makes a lesson a productive struggle for kids, it would be great just to not have Gemini cheat for them.

What people mean by not wanting AI - what you said - is so brain dead obvious that to claim not to understand is an absolute lie.

This reminds me of the Microsoft antitrust suit. Microsoft claimed Explorer couldn’t be “removed” because other apps used it internally. No shit Sherlock, what people wanted was the icon removed from the desktop and the direct browsing experience to be user’s choice.

> that makes a lesson a productive struggle for kids, it would be great just to not have Gemini cheat for them

Is there a possibility that in that productive struggle, certain kids just give up and decide either education as a whole isn't for them, or a certain subject isn't for them?

Is that a good thing or a bad thing for the kid?

Is that a good thing or a bad thing for society?

Could we have an equally productive struggle while fully integrating Gemini in all its glory? If yes, how would that look like?

A good productive struggle is specific for a specific student. Ideally the work is where they are working hard, learning to persevere, and getting through to the other side. For each kid that may mean going at a specific speed, having different levels of support, etc.

It's true that in a class of 25 it's not always possible for things to be individually tailored to give each student the perfect productive struggle.

In theory generative AI could eventually help with that. So far the "totally customized for each kid" online learning experiences that have been pushed by tech people haven't yet panned out at all, but that's not to say that they couldn't in the future.

But there's a difference between AI helping the teacher deliver a tailored learning experience to an individual, and a student just getting answers from AI. They're totally different. It's the second one that we want to simply block.

> So far the "totally customized for each kid" online learning experiences that have been pushed by tech people haven't yet panned out at all

absolutely fair criticism. I think this is how it will work out for students (my specific comment is written for devs but the underlying concept applies): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50361121

To repeat what I said here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50370496

What would be fantastic if we, as a society, invested in (S)LLM tools that every student "owns" and can "tune" to their liking. Almost like an assistant that "grows" with them.

The idea is that these tools are theirs, in their control and for them to manage.

Unlike Fable, it doesn't arbitrarily stop a student interested in reversing software or hardware from learning the craft because they are not a licensed researcher.

> But there's a difference between AI helping the teacher deliver a tailored learning experience to an individual, and a student just getting answers from AI. They're totally different. It's the second one that we want to simply block

What about an entirely different approach to that?

Existing study plans weren't designed with generative AI in mind at all. Educational policies and study plans even go back as much as 2000 years - we still follow practices and principles that were used when there were no electricity, forget PCs and generative AI.

Young children used to flock around a knowledgeable elder who would impart knowledge under a tree or a covered shed.

Maybe we need to rethink those policies, study plans, practices and principles by asking ourselves "what would the next generation of education look like if all exams were open book"?

> Schools want to control whether Gemini and other generative AI is available to students.

I really wish more articles and social media posts point this out, but a lot of writers either don't know this distinction or are going with a more "clickbaity" angle on purpose.

This is basically pedantry, they want generative AI and AI search off. If anyone is confused then you should be asking more questions to understand the desires.

Yeah it's pretty likely that schools are adding strict no AI clauses in their Google Workplace contracts and Google's lawyers are including search in that definition just to be safe. If they then want to enable it manually, sure.

This really isn't complicated. Students should be able to search for something and get back the "ten blue links" which they are forced to actually click through and read, without an AI overview or any other kind of conversational chatbot.

Approximately no one cares if Google is using an LLM internally to select those ten links. Maybe it creates some complications for lawyers around the definition of "no AI", but if the parties are aligned in spirit this should be easy to work out.

Schools should just be able to disable the AI overview.

Okay but the internet isn’t really a series of searchable documents anymore. Even when it is, what use is searching through 50 web pages to research other than tedium? If you want to practice manual research, restrict the kids to physical books only. Otherwise you’re just teaching them how much better AI is than Google search.

Have you tried this recently? In my experience, 8/10 if those blue links are ai generated websites that I don't trust.

> Have you tried this recently?

Yes, constantly. My default search engine is Startpage, which uses Google's API behind the scenes, so I have Google's results with no frills.

> schools really don't have a good grasp on what AI means in relationship to them and what policies would result in better outcomes

Honestly it's too early to know.

Also, schools are in the business of imparting knowledge and schools in the U.S. are extremely expensive. Any parent knows the additional fees, supplies etc most schools demand on top of their taxes that go to the school district.

If you take the daycare aspect out of it, a $500/mo ChatGPT subscription is noise by comparison. A student doesn't have to be lucky to have a receptive teacher that has enough office hours and the interest to help the student. ChatGPT is available 24x7. A teacher takes days off, falls sick and has favorites.

If AI enters the school with full force, bulk of the teachers are likely going to be replaced by various care staff.

There will still likely be some human assistants around who will be the new "teachers" but the current format of everyone staring at a whiteboard is going to change forever in this future.

The concept of "grades" (as in K-12) are also likely going to go away replaced by cohorts, simply because every student has their own "teacher" who understands their specific needs and can pay them all the attention they need assisted by a human adult.

One child can be in one cohort for English and an entirely different cohort for Math.

You believe that the ai will teach? Would you want a private company to replace all teachers with a chatbot, if it can?

Have you personally, ever used AI to teach you something? What was it and how was your experience? Was is the same, superior or inferior to a standard, typical, in-class learning experience?

I have certain ly asked about topics i am not familiar with. It is difficult to say i learned anything better than a regular google search at best. However, I am not sure what lacks in the inclasslearningexperience that needs wholesale replacement.

AI is indispensable teacher already. Patient, kind, will trying myriad of different angles to explain concepts that are still foreign to the pupil. My 13-year old uses AI all the time for studying, review, quizzing, grasping new concepts... Compared to humans, AI is far superior in many regards. I am very patient by nature but my kid is just so curious about everything and I get peeved when I am unable to explain something to her in terms she understands. AI will go one way and then another way and then another way and then will provide questions and quizzes and ... to make sure concepts are grasped correctly, with additional things to take a concept further. I would never say that private company should replace teachers with the chatbot, AI is "not a private company" in general and there are many ways to use AI which is not tied to some one (or two or three) private companies. But not using AI as a tool in this day/age I think is quite silly

Ai, is not a private company but the providers that would get the contract are. If open source or even open wieght llms are likely then I would be willing to concede a tiny bit more. The only nonprofit I can think of making genAi hid the weights and went for profit as soon as it was viable, you can see how this is cause for skepticism.

> If open source or even open wieght llms are likely then I would be willing to concede a tiny bit more

And this is exactly the argument I make on this thread. You might be unable to see it though because apparently it's a deeply unpopular take.

Agreed wholeheatedly. Unfortunately, school administrators, teachers and a lot of parents are absolutely opposed to this insight.

I made a main comment to this very post with a similar perspective that's downvoted so heavily I can't even see it while logged out.

We could literally build "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" now. I'm sure someone is working on it. Whether that will be a net positive for students is unknown.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/172835/the-diamond-...

Can you see how "explicitly requested (by staff) machine translation of school communications into parents' languages" is different from "students had the LLM write their term paper"?

"Schools don't understand AI", so they don't deserve search?

Corporations like Google are not their for their users, not even the paying ones. They are there to maximize profits, and users are just a necessary evil to achieve that.

To me, it sounds like you are intentionally obtuse here. They know what they want, you know what they want, but you are playing gotcha with them.

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