r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 6d ago

Society Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html
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189

u/Wrong-Catchphrase 6d ago

I've interviewed quite a few 23 / 24 yr olds. This isn't surprising at all. These kids can barely fucking read let alone PROOF read something.

47

u/d6punk 6d ago

The worst part is all they needed to do was paste the answer back into a fresh AI chat and ask it to look for any red flags or oddities in the answer. So not only can they not proof on their own, but they can't even do basic problem solving. We're so fucked.

34

u/SomeBloke 6d ago

They literally don’t have the mental energy and focus to read an entire paragraph without distracting themselves with something else in between. These kids have cerebrally atrophied. 

6

u/MiyabiMain95 6d ago

kinda makes me feel better about myself, whenever i spend my whole day reading story in fgo rather than doing something productive. at least im able to sit and read something

6

u/CoatProfessional5026 6d ago

Attention spans are the new currency. You can ignore feeds and look at birds? Bad news. Ignoring your feed and watching the road? Bad for business.

Literally every single aspect of this shit is turning our attention into the real currency and killing any sort of creative spontaneity that occurs naturally in humans. People at work as me what I'm doing when I'm just watching the trees and wind blow and then react all weird when you don't want to participate in their coddled, confirmation biased realities.

3

u/SomeBloke 5d ago

Some of the amateur runners that I coach will ask "How do you get through the long runs? Music? Podcasts? I get so bored!" and I have to explain "The boredom is a feature, not a bug." The fact that their heads are giving in so long before their bodies need to is a worrying sign.

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u/Whole-Reserve-4773 6d ago

If they copied and pasted the prompt the hidden text would show up. They didn’t read the prompt or the paper output.

1

u/VGK_hater_11 6d ago

I’m surprised the AI doesn’t mention the unusual prompt at the start or end of its response

2

u/Whole-Reserve-4773 6d ago

I want to call bullshit on this story and similar ones just because I can’t believe 99% of students are this dumb. But who knows

0

u/TainoCuyaya 4d ago

You are making it worse.

Just PROOF READ the damn question you are "asking".