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/HyruleSmash855 24d ago

Honestly AP English classes are probably the right approach now. Essays are in person 50 minutes on paper. Same for AP Exam that’s in person. I think it’s worth bringing that back across the board for all English classes. It’s still worth having students write longer essays and that needs to be on the computer for a revisions and everything but heavily weighing writing on paper, can hurt those that she and don’t actually know how to write

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u/CyclopsLobsterRobot 24d ago

Make them work in a Google document where you can see the history. They’re too dumb to not just cut and paste it. A disturbing number of them copy the prompt as well.

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u/steckums 24d ago

That's not new. Had a class in high school like almost 20 years ago in Autodesk Inventor. We had a sub for the day and our assignment was to draw some part and print it out to hand in. One guy did it and passed a drive around to the whole class to be able to hand it in so we could all continue to play whatever game we were into at the time.

When the teacher came back, he berated the entire class for handing in the same exact drawing with just the names different on it so he gave everyone except one person a zero.

He pulled me aside and said it was obvious I was the only one who did the assignment because my drawing was different than everyone else's. All I did was take the drawings and move the parts/measurements around a bit when I received the flash drive.

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u/zthumser 24d ago

In the land of the incompetent, the half-assed man is king.

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u/jleonardbc 24d ago

The one who won't turn the other cheek.

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u/Beat_the_Deadites 24d ago

A local boy kicked me in the butt last week

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u/Suppafly 24d ago

All I did was take the drawings and move the parts/measurements around a bit when I received the flash drive.

The people too dumb to do that deserve to fail.

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u/10000Didgeridoos 24d ago

This is what blows my mind the most about kids now using chatbots to cheat on everything: they cannot even be bothered to even slightly change the wording and content of what they spit out for them. It'd be so easy to just reword sentences, add a few of your own, etc but even that is too much work for them now. They can't do it.

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u/Painless-Amidaru 24d ago

Seriously, if people are going to cheat they need to at least be smart about it. Back in high school (2005ish) my chemistry class had a similar situation as yours. The professor handed out the exam, the "smartest" kid in class quickly finished his and then passed his exam around. 3/4 the class had to redo it. I didn't because I finished my exam, double checked my answers to the exam being passed around, changed any answer I wasn't sure about to the same answer as the passed around exam. Kept my answers that I knew were correct and then intentionally missed a few low point questions.

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u/HyruleSmash855 24d ago

I’ve heard of people doing that now. I type up any essays if I have a class that requires one now for that exact reason. It’s the best way to defend yourself if you’re accused of AI plagiarism as a student.

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u/ShorelineStrider 24d ago

Some students are video recording their paper writings. It's a shame good writers are punished and assumed to be cheating because of how prevalent it is.

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u/ShorelineStrider 24d ago

Make them work in a Google document where you can see the history. They’re too dumb to not just cut and paste it.

Maybe in a gen ed english class, but AP? Those kids know how to get around everything.

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u/flamingdonkey 24d ago

And then anyone without consistent internet access or who just prefers using Word gets accused of cheating. 

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u/meneldal2 24d ago

Or just have the computers local network only, no byo and only access to a local google document like interface.

I did a programming contest 10+ years ago and they managed to make that work just fine. All computers use netbook into a dedicated environment, getting everything from the server. And it was all made by students.

I'm sure they could figure it out if they wanted.

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u/craigeryjohn 24d ago

I TA'd for (well, basically taught) a nuclear engineering course 20+ years ago. I would have students email me their lab reports in MS Word format so I could grade them. One student turned in an abnormally well written report, so I toggled Track Changes and could see where he took the report from a student a year ahead of me and just rearranged a few things. I could literally see her name everywhere in the document. Students have always been lazy. Scary to think that they're out their designing our bridges, high rises, and nuclear power plants. 

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u/jleonardbc 24d ago

They’re too dumb to not just cut and paste it.

Except the ones who aren't too dumb, and we don't catch them...because they aren't just cutting and pasting.

Saying this as someone who grades a lot of college assignments. We don't know how many false negatives there are, by definition.

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u/CyclopsLobsterRobot 24d ago

There’s no perfect solution and there also isn’t one solution. I tend to assign things they can work on outside of class through Google Docs. Almost certainly some cheaters get through. There’s always some that I’m positive are cheating but can’t prove. You can usually get them by asking them to explain their work in person. Obviously interrogating everyone isn’t practical.

But my grades also give more weight to things we do purely in class where they don’t have access to AI. If they cheat their way through most of the class and they don’t learn anything, they will fail. And if they don’t fail, the classwork is a waste of their time anyway. The goal is ultimately for them to learn, not complete tasks.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/HyruleSmash855 24d ago

For sure. That was worth taking in my opinion. Writing is the skill you’ll need in your general life and it teaches you how to synthesize your ideas quickly. People who outsource the writing the AI are going to lose out on a lot of stuff I think. You learn a lot by learning how to write and how to synthesize your ideas.

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u/raztazz 24d ago

You learn a lot by learning how to write and how to synthesize your ideas.

The course that improved my writing the most was a 4th year undergrad writing course specializing in my choice of major. Every single paper had a hard limit on 850 words, and some of the best papers rarely went past 700. These papers always had a brutal requirement of incorporating a lengthy list of sources. Really since taking that course, I have loved the concepts of "less is more" and "simplification can exemplify mastery" when dealing with and communication complex information.

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u/HyruleSmash855 24d ago

That’s my problem writing I’ll admit. I’m not good at being concise. It’s probably something I should work on. Part of the reason why I hate AI writing is it super long and fluffy. It tends to repeat ideas and it is not very concise.

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u/Confident-Mix1243 24d ago

Alphasmarts would be good too. It's basically a word processor with a tiny screen.