Google’s Circle to Search will help you with your math homework

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Circle to Search on Android can now help students learn to solve mathematical word problems thanks to Google’s new LearnLM model.

By Umar Shakir, a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.

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A math word problem that says a car takes 8 seconds to accelerate from 0 meters per second to 24 meters per second. Calculate the acceleration of the car. There’s a drawn circle around the word problem. A metallic blue android bot is in the corner with a Gemini star above it.

Google might tell you f = ma, or something. I haven’t been to school for a long time.
Image: Google

Google is enhancing Android’s Circle to Search — the feature that lets you literally circle something on your Android phone’s screen to search it on Google — with a new ability to generate instructions on how to solve school math and physics problems.

Using an Android phone or tablet, students can now use Circle to Search to get AI assistance on mathematical word problems from their homework. The feature will help unpack the problem and list what the student needs to do to get the correct answer. According to Google, it won’t actually do the homework for you — only help you approach the problem.

Over the past year, the use of AI tools like ChatGPT has become a hot topic in the field of education, with plenty of concern over how students can and will use it to get work done quickly. Google, however, is explicitly positioning this as a feature to support education, potentially walking around some of the concerns about AI doing all of the work for students.

Circle to Search on a math problem gives you step-by-step instructions without giving away the final answer.
Circle to Search on a math problem gives you step-by-step instructions without giving away the final answer.

Circle to Search on a math problem gives you step-by-step instructions without giving away the final answer.
GIF: Google

Later this year, Circle to Search will also gain the ability to solve complex math equations that involve formulas, diagrams, graphs, and more. Google is using LearnLM, its new AI model that’s fine-tuned for learning, to make the new Circle to Search abilities work.

Circle to Search first launched on Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series in January and then on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro later the same month. It’s one of the star new features of Android, and although iOS users can’t yet circle their math homework for help, anything is possible.

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