{"id":19380,"date":"2026-11-08T09:47:38","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T16:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=19380"},"modified":"2026-11-08T09:47:38","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T16:47:38","slug":"its-awful-that-google-wont-just-let-users-turn-off-ai-overviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/11\/08\/its-awful-that-google-wont-just-let-users-turn-off-ai-overviews\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Awful That Google Won\u2019t Just Let Users Turn Off AI Overviews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The interesting question is why? As Google risks losing ground in education if they won’t cooperate with schools, and regular users still using Google will move to another search engine if they can’t disable their AI trash, losing ground there as well. And to compound the problem they just had a financial miss. So why are they trying so hard to force everyone to their AI trash? Consequently, I use my own public instance of search proxy SearxNG<\/a>, but the search engines it draws from are constantly screwing with privacy proxies as they have to update the software almost daily. And every once in a while a bunch of the search engines block it for too many requests. And there are a host of other privacy search engines, Qwant<\/a>, Swisscows<\/a>, Mojeek<\/a>, DuckDuckGo<\/a>… so I usually switch to Qwant if my SearxNG instance is being blocked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence\/awful-google-turn-off-ai-overviews<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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The company is digging in its heels as AI continues to wreak havoc in schools.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Victor Tangermann<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Shutterstock \/ Futurism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this week, the New York Times<\/em> reported<\/a> that Google is pressuring schools not to ban AI \u2014 by rescinding their access to its eponymous search engine if they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision triggered a firestorm among educators and lawmakers, with senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) accusing the company of \u201cextortion<\/a>.\u201d Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) fumed that Google was \u201conce again prioritizing profits over people,\u201d tweeting that it\u2019s \u201cmore concerned with forcing Gemini into schools than enabling students to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children,\u201d New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Google Search of yore is now topped with an AI feature called AI Overviews, which has caused an unprecedented tidal wave of misinformation<\/a>. Since it comes ahead of actual sources with confident-sounding answers that are often overtly wrong or flawed, the feature has caused grave concern among teachers who fear that it\u2019s undermining students\u2019 educational development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that it\u2019s not just schools. Users have been pleading Google for an AI-free search experience, which would be trivially easy for the tech giant to implement, but those pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Worse yet, in a Tuesday statement<\/a> commenting on the NYT<\/em>\u2019s reporting, Google dug in its heels, claiming it was giving schools \u201cmore choice, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are also updating Search for schools to make it better for learning,\u201d Google wrote in its statement. \u201cSpecifically, AI Mode and AI Overviews will offer step-by-step guided learning through problems, so that students don\u2019t get quick answers to schoolwork.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the tech titan refuses to acknowledge the problem in any meaningful way, actively trying to gaslight educators that it\u2019s taking their concerns seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, this isn\u2019t \u201cmore choice\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s refusing to engage with the school system on their request to have an AI-free Google experience in the classroom, a possibility that appears to be off the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019ll be interesting to see how educators will respond to Google\u2019s insistence on AI. The tech giant\u2019s software is deeply engrained in the classroom, from Gmail to Chromebooks, which could make cutting the company\u2019s software out a difficult transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatives to its search engine are far and few between. But that doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t exist at all \u2014 and Google\u2019s competitors are jumping at the chance to gain ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no technical reason why Google can\u2019t turn AI off,\u201d said Allison Goodman, senior communications manager at search alternative DuckDuckGo. \u201cAI overviews is a search module like maps, flights, or weather. Google can determine when it shows up and when it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnlike Google, AI in DuckDuckGo is optional,\u201d Goodman wrote, clarifying that \u201cschools can make DuckDuckGo their default search engine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The interesting question is why? As Google risks losing ground in education if they won’t cooperate with schools, and regular users still using Google will move to another search engine if they can’t disable their AI trash, losing ground there as well. And to compound the problem they just had a financial miss. So why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19381,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19380\/revisions\/19381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}