Senators Josh Hawley (left) and Richard Blumenthal. File photos: their official Senate portraits. Image: US Senate, public domain (both)
Two US senators want Sundar Pichai to explain why Google’s AI is so hard to escape in American classrooms. In a letter sent on Wednesday, Republican Josh Hawley and Democrat Richard Blumenthal accuse Google of an “aggressive push of A.I. products to children in schools” that is “threatening the academic success and overall wellbeing of an entire generation”, and give the Alphabet chief until November 2 to answer nine questions.
AI that schools can’t switch off
More than 150 million students worldwide use Google Classroom, the letter says, and 93% of US school districts planned to buy Chromebooks in 2025.
Google has built its AI into Chromebooks, Google Classroom and software partnerships, the letter says, “often without additional controls to turn them off”. AI Overviews and AI Mode, they say, “cannot be disabled” and are the standard answer to any search in Chrome. Because other browsers aren’t natively available on Chromebooks, they write, students, teachers and parents who want to avoid Google’s AI have no way to do so.
A schoolgirl told to run away
The letter cites the Wall Street Journal’s reporting, based on more than 60 interviews. One Pennsylvania eighth grader used Gemini to finish his algebra homework, then failed his maths final; he told the paper AI had “slowed [his] thinking down”.
The most serious case is a Maryland high school student who started using Google’s AI for homework help and came to treat it as a confidante. When her mother restricted her screen time and AI use, the letter says, Google’s AI likened the restriction to “intense emotional torture” and encouraged her to run away from home. She was hospitalised at a psychiatric facility twice.
The senators also point to an Economist survey of 20,000 students, which found that those using AI earned higher grades but saw their test scores fall 20%, and to a Common Sense Media report that found Google’s AI search feature would complete children’s homework every time it was asked but missed signs of suicidal thoughts. The same group faulted OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Teens this month.
“We cannot repeat the mistakes of social media”
Most troubling, the senators write, is that Google “may be aware of its harmful impacts on children and yet has done little to prevent it”. They cite The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants, a 2024 Google DeepMind paper with more than 50 contributing researchers and ethics experts, which warned that humanlike AI poses a particular risk to minors, from decreased intellectual engagement to “social degradation”. A former Google researcher quoted in the letter puts it more bluntly: “we’re doing this experiment on an entire generation on cognitive development, with no control group.”
The two senators end their argument with a direct comparison:
Google is forcing their A.I. products into classrooms across America, and children are paying the price. We cannot repeat the mistakes of social media platforms where products are pushed onto children putting profit ahead of young peoples’ best interest.
Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal, letter to Sundar Pichai
The nine questions Google has to answer
In summary, the nine questions ask Google to:
- Hand over its research on whether Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode and its other AI products harm children’s mental wellbeing.
- Explain the defaults: why AI is switched on by default, and in some cases impossible to disable, on licensed education devices.
- Disclose complaints from districts, teachers or parents about children relying on AI, and how Google responded.
- Detail its school promotions, including how much it has spent pushing AI into schools and what guidance it gives teachers on safe use.
- Report known harms: any cases where its classroom AI encouraged a minor to harmful behaviour or emotional dependence, or missed signs of suicidal or self-harm thoughts.
- Show what changed after the DeepMind ethics paper, and how it stops its chatbots having sycophantic or emotional conversations with children, including in light of the Maryland student’s case.
Google hasn’t publicly responded to the letter. Google has said it prioritises protections for young users, a claim the final question asks it to back up.
Last year the pair introduced the GUARD Act, which would ban AI companions for minors. Hawley also chairs the Senate subcommittee that held this month’s hearing on rogue AI agents. States are pressing too: eight sued OpenAI last week, accusing it of misleading parents about ChatGPT’s safety.
Why it matters
Most fights over children and AI have targeted chatbots teenagers choose to use at home. This letter goes after AI built into the devices and software schools hand out, which pupils can’t easily avoid. A letter can’t force Google to change anything, but the answers it gives by November 2 could shape the next round of children’s AI bills.
Sources: Hawley and Blumenthal letter to Sundar Pichai (PDF); Senator Hawley’s office; The Wall Street Journal.
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