By Mary O’KEEFE

About a year ago an article for CalMatters by Lynn La titled, “AI-powered tools like Google Lens pose cheating challenge for CA classrooms” examined how an AI-powered tool like Lens has made it easier for students to cheat on digital tests by allowing them to highlight text on their laptops and having Lens share explanations or interpretation of the text. 

In the article, a Los Angeles Unified School District teacher said he had noticed that students in his class who were struggling in the past were suddenly doing very well on tests. 

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] did a study that found that students who used AI to help them write essays had 55% less cognitive activity than those who did not us AI. 

There have also been social media posts by parents sharing their concerns on how Google Lens would just “pop up” on their child’s Chromebook without a specific search being made. 

Google Lens, according to its website, is a set of vision-based computing capabilities that can understand what you’re looking at and use that information to copy or translate text, identify plants and animals, explore locales or menus, discover products, find visually similar images and take other useful actions.

CVW reached out to Glendale Unified School District to ask the district about the use of AI-powered tools like Google Lens; below is the response:

“We have protections in place on GUSD student Chromebooks and Chrome browsers when students are signed in with their GUSD accounts. Google Lens is blocked on GUSD student Chromebooks and Chrome browsers as part of our efforts to limit the use of tools that can capture an image of a question, worksheet or other assignment and provide information or answers.

“In addition, our web content filtering system blocks access to a broad range of AI-related websites and services for elementary students using GUSD devices and accounts. This includes general AI platforms, tools that generate text, images, video, or audio, and services designed to detect or analyze AI-generated content.

“These safeguards are designed to limit students’ ability to use AI and other outside tools to complete assignments. No technology system is 100%, and no technology system can guarantee that every workaround will be prevented. GUSD has put these protections in place to provide an appropriate level of protection on student devices.”

Google Lens has been around since 2017 and many have used it without realizing that it is the application being used. For example, using a cellphone camera to read a QR [quick response] code that instantly takes the user to a link that is related to that code. The application is used as a visual search tool to translate languages, identify plants and animals and to shop, according to Google Lens. 

The issue surrounding this technology is that it allows students to get information about a subject by asking Google Lens for an answer to a question (for example). Google Lens gets and gives the answer and the student regurgitates it to homework. On its website, it states: Step by step homework help Stuck on a problem? Quickly find explainers, videos and results from the web for math, history, chemistry, biology, physics and more.

Google Lens is part of the Chromebook.