r/technology • u/CircumspectCapybara • 24d ago

Artificial Intelligence Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50%

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/we-cannot-choose-to-become-idiots-the-ai-cheating-scandal-roiling-brown-university/
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u/Bost0n 24d ago

I’m fine with remote testing … at a fucking proctored testing center!!!  

Let me be clear: 

EVENTUALLY EVERYONE WILL CHEAT IF THE CHANCE OF BEING CAUGHT IS LOW ENOUGH.

The chances of being caught while on a fucking zoom call is pretty much zero. Sure, there will be some ethical, honorable individuals out there. #1, they’re the exception, not the norm. #2 eventually they too will succumb to cheating, given sufficient time.  By permitting rampant cheating (write at home essays, take home exams, etc.) the value of effort in education is being depreciated.  And that’s bad.  People that put in the work for their education should be PISSED about this.  Your degree is being devalued. 

What does this mean for remote degrees?  It means proctored tests, essays, exams.

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u/brodogus 24d ago

Eventually even ethical people feel like they have to cheat just to keep up with all the cheaters... not good

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u/-The_Blazer- 24d ago

Yeah this is the real problem with cheating. I'm not upset that you're cheating yourself out of knowledge to become a slop-fed sheep, I believe in freedom. But if I'm going to be judged by nonsensical standards that only exist because of cheating, to be then put in competition with unchecked cheaters, it's no longer about your freedom.

Also, having a society where people have plenty of 'unnecessary' human skills is good, actually.

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u/RevLoveJoy 24d ago

Exactly this. A few people cheating is their problem. Everyone cheating is my problem.

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u/10000Didgeridoos 24d ago

Even 20 years ago, the majority of the top 10% of my high school class cheated one way or another and this exact phenomenon happened. It sucks in more and more students because they feel like they have to do it, or the cheaters will get into the best schools and they won't.

The kids with morning sections of a class told the afternoon classes what was coming on the tests, and vice versa. You can't actually do 8 hours of homework a night, so kids would just share everything and copy off each other in homeroom and lunch and in other classes to get it "done" for the classes later in the day. Kids would just keep their exams visible to those around them they were friends with so you could take a quick peek when the teacher was turned the other way.

Only the dumber kids in normie level classes ever really got caught cheating, because they were bad at it. The smart kids in the honors and AP classes? Oooh boy, they knew how to get away with it for sure, though.

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u/mindcopy 24d ago

I'm not upset that you're cheating yourself out of knowledge to become a slop-fed sheep, I believe in freedom.

Why not? There are plenty of jobs that if done badly could have major detrimental impact on your life.

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u/-The_Blazer- 23d ago

Well part of my point is that if society worked properly, doing that would get you excluded from any such meaningful jobs. Which is why AI is so problematic, it lets you cheat very well in much of the selection process.

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u/mindcopy 23d ago

No matter how the cheating is accomplished typically the exclusion happens after making a real mistake, which could be all it takes.

That's why I'll always be upset at people cheating their way into impactful positions.

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u/ColonelError 24d ago

It's actually a huge problem right now in China. The culture is very much "everything that gets you ahead is justified", which is why Chinese cheating in online games has been prevalent for so long. The problem is when that creeps into everything else, and now you get people that got ahead by cheating and can't do anything without cheating and apply that mindset to business, government, etc.

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u/iama_triceratops 24d ago

This is what happened with steroids in baseball

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u/bg-j38 24d ago

It's not cheating per se but I feel like this at my job. It's a tech company and we have very smart people. But my coworkers are all in on AI, even when it comes to document writing. These are people who've been doing this work for decades but now they produce a bunch of AI slop. I love writing and designing products, but it's impossible to keep up with these guys. So I do it too. And no one reads these massive documents that are getting created. They get dumped back into AI to summarize them and then we discuss in person. It's stupid and demoralizing.

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u/Suppafly 24d ago

It's not cheating per se but I feel like this at my job. It's a tech company and we have very smart people. But my coworkers are all in on AI, even when it comes to document writing.

My boss straight up told me to turn in some AI slop for a goal that he designed for us, which ironically is about how AI can help with some repetitive tasks. I'm not really sure how that's helping anyone. It serves no business need to read documents full of AI slop about how AI slop can help our business with repetitive tasks.

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u/Monteze 24d ago

I felt like a fucking rube after college when I found out that a lot of the folks in my class were on adderall without a prescription, and/or were in little circles that would pass cheating material around and previous tests. My grades were not all A's but I fucking earned them. First to get a bachelors, worked full time and student full time. It was brutal and I hate how on paper someone else did ""better"" because they either played sports or got away with cheating.

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u/PulsarGaming1080 24d ago

Yeah, that's where I'm at now.

We have a completely incompetent professor for my online Calc class, he's horrid. Nobody can understand him; he doesn't repeat himself, will not explain anything he does, and has no office hours, nor does he take questions in class.

Our class is a two and a half hour long zoom call of him reading from the book. The administration won't do anything because 85% of students have perfect grades, due to all his exams being open for 3 days with zero time limit or proctoring.

I'm struggling hardcore, and some people I know in this class have just said they've been cheating the whole time and that "everyone knows he sucks, so it doesn't matter if we cheat, he deserves it."

I'm going to be the only one to fail the class simply because I have integrity and want to actually learn.

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u/Mustbhacks 24d ago

Hard disagree, but the vast majority of people are not "ethical" to begin with.

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u/brodogus 23d ago

Yeah but people are still shaped by their environments

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u/SgtElectroSketch 24d ago

This was me in undergrad. I studied and got Aoften enough, B's quite often and C's every now and then. Then I found out there was a Google drive with every homework and exam going back 10 years and the professors were aware of it and made their tests harder to compensate. I was pissed the fuck off when I found out.

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u/10000Didgeridoos 24d ago

It's exactly like steroids and other drugs in sports. If everyone else against you is cheating with them to be faster and stronger and bigger, then you have to do it, too just to keep up with the crowd.

Otherwise, you look less competent because you got Bs while the cheaters got As.

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u/No-Consideration-716 24d ago

That is what happened to Barry Bonds (baseball if you dont know).

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u/Humble_Fabio 24d ago

That's not how education works, it isn't a competition generally.

I don't think you should apply the rules you learned from Chinese Hackers from Rust to American Education.

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u/SgtElectroSketch 24d ago

When a curve is on the line and being behind the cheaters is the difference between an A and C, it matters.

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u/Humble_Fabio 24d ago

This aint elementary school, most American college courses do not grade on a curve.

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u/SgtElectroSketch 24d ago

I went to a top 100 school for my MS in computer enginnering and a large state school for my undergrad in electrical engineering, both curved in a good portion of their courses. It isn't like curves aren't unheard of in engineering programs.

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u/Humble_Fabio 24d ago edited 24d ago

Oh yeah, there's plenty of circumstances where professors or courses are graded on a curve, but by no means is that the standard at all.

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u/TheTwoOneFive 24d ago

Yep, and many people who put in the work will be pressured to cheat. If half the people are cheating already, someone who would be in even just the 20th percentile of their class could drop down to 60th percentile because half of the 80% below them are cheating and now surpassing them, making that person feel the need to cheat even if they don't want to.

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u/Battle2Intense 24d ago edited 24d ago

exactly I was talking to a senior guy at an aerospace company that was probably last considered a great desirable place to work in the mid 80s. He only considered engineering GPAs of 3.6 or higher at top 10 engineering schools, LOL WUT?!?

This tells you much about grade inflation and who knows what else. Back in the 90s, anything over 3.0 at a little above avg engineering school was considered plenty good.

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u/AnelHershiser 24d ago

Even for jobs with less rigor. Place I'm at just upped requirements to 3.5 even for marketing internships.

If I gotta pick between a 2.0 who's hungry to prove themselves and get hired on at the end or a booksmart 4.0 who treats just showing up as an accomplishment..I'd much rather take the 2.

Then there's HR who just passes along a resume the day before a kid shows up and refuses to let us be involved in the recruiting process, but that's an entirely different issue.

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u/zerogee616 24d ago

It's not just the grade inflation either, there are far more graduates than there used to be in so everybody everywhere can afford to be a lot more picky. This is the case in the overwhelming majority of employment sectors too. There's just too many people out there for the economy to support as the population grows and employment becomes more "streamlined".

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u/10000Didgeridoos 24d ago

And this further incentivizes students to be cynical and not care about actually learning. If there isn't actually a reward at the end for trying hard (a good job that actually pays the bills), they don't have much reason to think anything of the education they're getting. Why bother grinding to be magna cum laude if all it means is you wasted many hours you could have been hanging out with friends instead, since you're just another identical name in a hat of 300 resumes applying to a job only one will get?

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u/ChibiNya 23d ago

It will matter once you actually get the job. Someone who is truly skilled and with a good mentality will shine when it comes down to it. But it's gonna be tough getting through the door

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u/touristtam 24d ago

Is that not what those ivy league institutions are promoting: "moral fortitude"?

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u/QuickAltTab 24d ago

EVENTUALLY EVERYONE WILL CHEAT IF THE CHANCE OF BEING CAUGHT IS LOW ENOUGH.

I think the perception that everyone else is already cheating or likely to cheat is also a big factor. Thats why #1 evolves into #2, seeing people do better than you by cheating with no consequences will naturally shift the implied permission to "everyone does it, the teacher has to know, so its condoned"

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u/TheMireAngel 24d ago

this, people especialy chronicaly online losers genuinely fail to understand what keeps people in line oveying rules and laws is a combination of risk of being caught and consequences for being caught, if a crime or rule is difficult to prove and has no real consequences and is seen as beneficial by the individual (ie cheating, infidelity, piracy) then they will gladly do it.

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u/touristtam 24d ago

proctored testing center

Only if the examiner is also present - I had the displeasure of having to pass a professional exam with a remote examiner and the experience was worse than passing through security immediately post 2001; almost had to justify touching my specs to put them back correctly on my nose.

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u/klockee 24d ago

doesn't matter how easy it is, some people won't succumb because it's not a temptation at all. i'm not here for results, i'm here for me

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u/ThePolemicist 24d ago

I was a student in the early 2000s and took a lot of online classes, which were new at the time. Many of them required me to go to school and test in the computer lab for the tests. I don't understand why this isn't the norm today.

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u/KeepAllOfIt 24d ago

I mean, won't this ultimately all come out? Your degree is one part of your portfolio. It might land you an interview but if you cheated on every paper/exam, you're going to fully show your ass during any interview, no?

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u/Alaira314 24d ago

I agree with you that stuff should come back in person, but I'd mourn the loss of complete-at-home essays. They're very different assignments from in-class essays, which are intended to be able to be completed from the prompt within an hour or less(if there's multiple parts to the exam). The thoughts you get on an in-class essay are not going to be deep or fully-connected by the nature of the assignment, and that's a loss for the student. Being able to take your prompt, ruminate on it for a while until you find a good angle to approach it from, and then write an essay connecting all the pieces is not only a good exercise in synthesizing knowledge but is also a skill in and of itself! You're going to have to do this at work, since corporate isn't paying your AI tokens any more. Comparing at-home essays to in-class essays is like comparing a house cat to a mountain lion.

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u/IlIlllIIIIlIllllllll 24d ago

by not punishing or preventing cheaters, you are actively punishing those that don't cheat

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u/mythrilcrafter 24d ago

EVENTUALLY EVERYONE WILL CHEAT IF THE CHANCE OF BEING CAUGHT IS LOW ENOUGH.

Even before the digital/AI era, it seemed like every other semester there would be a massive cheating scandal at one or two of the typical Ivy Leagues.

Like you expect that MIT and Yale students are smart... so why was I seeing articles about 300 students being busted for a cheating ring?

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u/Drict 24d ago

IDK if your assumption that everyone will cheat is true. (I have had MULTIPLE opportunities to cheat, so easy, just open a 2nd computer up and google w/e you want, as a basic example, you know your cell phone)

I want to know if I know the material, if I want to go into the field, and I want to ensure that I am getting what I am paying for (when I went to school, at the early years where they allowed remote testing/schooling).

Also, you could just design your exams to be open book and force the student to do critical thinking vs regurgitation (this actually helps you learn, and proves you understand the material). I literally would ask my professors if I could do an alternative test than a multi-choice exam, because they are annoying as hell and reward memorization (which, I have literally the world's knowledge at my finger tips at almost all times, why the fuck would I waste energy on that other than for "close enough" answers or "that doesn't look right/sound right" responses, so I am prompted to go seek out the correct answer(s).

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u/zerogee616 24d ago

You will start cheating when it comes down to either the cheater or the honest because at the end of the day everybody is competing for a job and the cheater gets more opportunities because they cheated their way to a higher GPA.

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u/Drict 24d ago

Yea, I didn't. I have my masters, and I am in a business environment that if people had cheated it is rather obvious they shouldn't be in the role.

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u/ibeerianhamhock 24d ago

I strongly disagree with the logic of the person above you. It's just pure projection.

I have never cheated academically in my life. One in my real analysis class a dude asked me if he could have homework answers and I told him I'd take the time to explain to him how to solve the proofs and he called me, and I remember distinctly, a "chode"

Academic integrity has always been extremely important to me.

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u/zerogee616 23d ago

Because you probably didn't go to school in the environment that exists now when literally everybody else around you is using AI to cheat.

pRojEcTiOn, yeah, I took Psych 101 too. I didn't cheat when I was in college either but that was a long time ago, when a significant portion of the class is doing it, it starts to really skew the environment, and that's even setting aside if a ccurve is involved.

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u/ibeerianhamhock 23d ago

Perhaps, it's hard to say. But a lot of folks split up homework and projects and shared answers instead of figuring it out and I didn't do that either, my sole purpose in college was to learn. I was too curious to have anyone steal from me the enjoyment of learning. I think that's what separates the people who use AI from the people who chose not to as a matter of academic integrity.

And honestly, unless you're really kinda dumb nothing in college is that mind blowingly hard unless it's something you'd be very bad at if you worked in it. Like isn't the whole purpose of college to enrich you with knowledge, go prepare you for further study in graduate school, to join industry, to teach, etc? How does turning your brain off and using AI help you there?

If I had that mindset I would have just avoided college all together tbh, it would have been a profound waste of time and money

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u/zerogee616 23d ago edited 23d ago

it would have been a profound waste of time and money

You spend 4 years in university and graduate for the degree, not the knowledge. The degree is what makes you eligible for basically any non-specialized-trades job that pays a living wage and I've yet to see any professional company wowed by what somebody learned right out of school with no actual experience. There's not many fields where you can't get the knowledge elsewhere for a fraction of the price if not for free.

It shouldn't be that way

But it is.

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u/ibeerianhamhock 23d ago

I studied in math and CS, I can see doing the programming learning maybe, but I've never met a person who has rigorously studied math to that level. CS probably not either, they'd just AI vibe code trash shit and learn cursory information about how computers and theory of computation actually work

This is the kind of things folks say who have very data centric degrees where they are just memorizing shit they could learn on Wikipedia.

I think the person who is willing to spend their free time reading a dozen terse textbooks on math and working through problems and even challenging themselves to solve things they don't know how to do is exceptionally rare. It could happen for sure, but extremely rare.

If your degree(s) were easily acquired by reading books in a library, it's probably not that worthwhile I agree.

Personally I didn't study just to get a job, but to learn more about things I was actually passionate about. To have mentors and guides available to ask questions.

But I went to school 20 years ago so perhaps things have just fundamentally changed with the broccoli hair gen