Google is force-feeding AI to you, and so will everyone else

Résumé détaillé

Tech companies are embedding AI into their products, leaving consumers with little choice

Vass Bednar is the managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute and co-author of The Big Fix.

American K-12 schools will soon have more control over students’ access to Google’s artificial intelligence tools, the company announced last week – but only up to a point. Classrooms that opt out of AI entirely will also lose the ability to use Google Search.

Google’s strong-arming provoked accusations that the company is exploiting its dominance in search to force AI adoption in classrooms.

The tech giant’s announcement followed mounting criticism from educators, lawmakers and parents concerned about AI’s effects on student learning. Earlier this year, Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization, tested 2,100 citations from Google’s AI search. It found that 29% came from low-quality sources − user-generated sites such as Reddit and YouTube – and recommended that Google turn its AI Overviews and AI Mode off by default for school and child accounts.

In the 1990s, Microsoft famously faced an antitrust case over its decision to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows. More recently, European regulators investigated Microsoft’s default inclusion of Teams with its dominant Office productivity software. In both instances, concern was that dominance in one market was dictating outcomes in another. Today, AI is the product being sneakily bundled with everything else.

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For technology companies investing extraordinary sums in AI infrastructure, it’s a convenient arrangement. Essential digital services can automatically be turned into AI distribution channels, delivering users and potentially valuable data regardless of what people actually want. This risks creating the appearance of enthusiastic, widespread consumer demand when there is little meaningful choice.

Even before Google’s announcement, publishers argued that they cannot refuse to have their content used in AI-generated search features…

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Début de l'article, extrait de The Globe and Mail (Report on Business). Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.