Dive Brief:
- Three years ago, Google deployed large-language models to produce AI-generated summaries that sit at the top of internet searches, giving K-12 students and anyone else searching for information an apparent shortcut to the answers they were seeking.
- Many school districts across the U.S. are skeptical of the tool, however. “It takes just a couple searches to get some really bad information and show kids that this overview is not necessarily accurate,” said Amanda Kordeliski, director of libraries and instructional technology at Norman Public Schools in Oklahoma.
- Kordeliski, who is also president of the American Association of School Librarians, said she has been meeting with colleagues nationwide and has found that many have removed students’ ability to converse with the Google AI summary chatbot on school devices.
Dive Insight:
“Kids get really frustrated,” Kordeliski said. “At least right now, a lot of AI overviews have inaccurate information. It’s more work for them to use the AI overview, because then they have to find what’s wrong.”
For example, when Kordeliski has tried to search for how to overcome an iron deficiency, she has received an AI overview that says, “Carry rocks in your pocket.”
While most summaries might not be quite that absurd, she said, “When kids see that it’s extra work or have it come back to bite them because they didn’t do the additional reading to fact-check — and they have something in a presentation or project that’s wildly inaccurate and skews their results — they become a little wary.”
Kordeliski said she has also encountered examples of search queries that start with the AI overview and then have so many links with sponsored content that she’s had to scroll to the second or even third page to find the links her search has generated.
“As it’s developing right now, the librarian mantra of ‘trust but verify’ is what we’re hitting home,” she said. “Yes, AI can save you time. But you still need to spend time fact-checking or correcting or finding what the AI pulled from the resources to generate that overview.”
Kordeliski said she’s used to teaching the old Boolean style of searching, which includes techniques on how to narrow results when sourcing information on Google.
"But that part is becoming increasingly difficult," Kordeliski added. "I’m increasingly concerned about how to filter out stuff. It makes it a longer road for kids to find the information that they actually need.”
There’s also the looming question of the technology’s impact on critical thinking.
“We are very interested in following the research and finding out what happens to your critical thinking skills when you’re using a large amount of AI — and the ability to find information on your own,” said. “We want all of our learners to be capable of finding information they need when they graduate and move on into the quote-unquote ‘real world.’”
