A professor used white font to hide instructions to throw off students using an AI chatbot to cheat on their midterm.
Imagine…they didn’t. Even. Read it.
They deserve the failure grade
Good on him for catching them out, but they should’ve received more severe a punishment for such blatant and lazy cheating.
And explaining how you caught them doesn’t make them less likely to cheat in the future, it simply makes them less likely to be caught doing so.
It’s been a good long while, but when I was a student, cheating got you automatically expelled - temporarily for a small “casual” case of plagiarism, permanently for anything more egregious.
I guess things have changed.
Yeah. When I was a student, I got sent to an academic misconduct panel just suspected of cheating, and was told I absolutely could be expelled if they found out I had actually done it.
And sure, in reality somebody had copied my work and I could prove it, so I was fine - but at least they bothered to actually investigate in my example!
I know policies are different between institutions, but these students got caught red-handed not just plagiarising, but outright faking coursework submissions. Why is there no investigation into their previous coursework, no misconduct panel interviews, literally nothing apart from failing the specific part of the mid-term they were caught cheating on.
No wonder they don’t give a damn when the punishment for being caught has so little teeth!
As you say, times have changed for the worse.
Well, the source for this story is the professor in a short form video, who doesn’t explicitly say there wasn’t any further punishment afaik.
I haven’t actually seen it though because the fucking idiot himself is equally morally bankrupt by posting it on a weapon run by Beijing.
Colleges have become profit obsessed and students are the cash cows. Expulsion is bad for revenue.
Policy where I teach is that it’s up to the professor’s discretion, though that’s mostly because it’s not always as easy to prove as this. There’s a boilerplate anti cheating section we have in our syllabus that says it’s a reportable offense that may lead to academic probation or expulsion.
Honestly, it’s also a ton of paperwork so I’ve just opted to fail them since usually my papers aren’t so easily answered via an LLM and rather than tell them I caught them cheating, I simply point out they missed rubric item 2, 5 and 6 so it’s something solid, not my speculation. But I also haven’t white texted them yet, lol.
Well you see, we don’t have DEI any more.
Instead we simply have literally no standards, for anyone!
That’s how meritocracy works, right?
Removed by mod
I presume that the use of gen AI is not considered plagiarism.
They probably have some kind of lame policy around “responsible use of gen AI” or something.
And explaining how you caught them doesn’t make them less likely to cheat in the future, it simply makes them less likely to be caught doing so.
They didn’t even read what the AI spewed. They aren’t paying attention at all, they’re making zero effort. I don’t think they’ll be less likely to be caught, because they’ll never come across the explanation.
That’s why university evaluations should be always in pen and paper.
this is just unacceptable, those students should be just expelled without mercy IMO.
Or at least give students computers that have restricted or no access to the internet? Even before LLMs having access to the internet would have been a huge opportunity to cheat. At least in most subjects.
Also, what happened to teachers/supervisors walking around and checking if the students cheat? Back when I went to school we also cheated with cheat sheets or exchanging answers but it was always risky because getting busted meant failing the test (or worse).
Letting students use the internet unrestrictedly would be like the teacher leaving the room and leaving us unsupervised for the duration of the test back in my days.
I went to high school in the '80s. I cheated in my German class by inventing my own runic-sort-of script and
decliningconjugating all the verbs on the cover of my notebook, hiding it in a drawing of a big obelisk or spaceship or the like. I would have this notebook on the floor during the test and I could easily read whatever I needed right off of it. Teacher never suspected a thing.And now … I can’t fucking speak German. The teacher did throw a board eraser at my head one time, but that was only because I kept speaking German with a thick Texas accent.
I reckon part of the problem is that verbs are conjugating. Nouns are declined.
Well, I cheated in English class the same way …
could be… they made me programa python on paper.
for introduction to programming, basically you had to try to run the program on your head lmao.
Yeah I did this with C and it was stressful, but the marks are usually graded more leniently if its clear you just got a function name mixed up for example.
“Open book” or internet tests or tests you wrote at home were much harder because they know you have all the resources
I’ve had multiple classes that required writing code by hand. Not that big of a deal imo.
And before you ask, the first was Intro to C (in which the teacher ironically always wrote the problems in C++) and the second was Applied Numerical Methods
I visited India in the early '90s and I was surprised to find there a small software shop that had five programmers and one PC. They would write their code (in TurboBasic lol) on paper and then take turns typing it into the computer and running it.
I did the same thing at the start of my own programming career … only with punchcards instead of pencil and paper.
It sounds silly but “running the program from your head” is a super important skill as a programmer. It’s what you do when you read and try to understand other people’s code.
idunno man I’m studying mech eng… still a lot of fun that class ngl, I once was taking an engineering nap at the library, and while I was in the stupor just before asleep, it came to me the answer to a extra point question the teacher had given, one that was supposed to be in the exam but they took it out because they tought it was too hard.
Damn I felt smart for a brief second there, never in my life had I felt smarter lol.
yeah i enjoyed that class, but i can’t imagine myself workig as a CompSci/eng/programmer, I found that is just too much brute force for my taste, is just not that elegant.
this, they can do this in a computer lab, where a lab moniter employee can watch all the students computers from her computers. they do this at our CC computer labs, 1 moniter hired to watch whatever the students are doing on thier computers, from her computer which moniters all the students comps at once.
If having access to basic technology like the internet is considered cheating, then your test need to upgrade to the 21st century.
I’m all for teaching tech literacy. It’s one of the most important skills. However, if a task is about writing your own thoughts in your own words then maybe you should prevent cheating by limiting access to tools like llms or have better supervision.
If the task involves using technology then the task should be adapted so you still need your own mind to solve it (obviously).
Ah yes, let’s make it so everyone that is physically disabled or lacking in dexterity fails tests, just like the good old days.
/Sarcasm
This is ridiculous, in my uni is pen and paper, and people with physical or mental disabilities get accommodations so they can perform as good as other people, I myself have some due to autism.
What is not OK is just to give a medium to enable cheaters like this.
Yeah, it’s interesting seeing some professors complaining about how AI has made catching cheaters harder now.
But then you see that they are letting students have access to phones and laptops during exam with no software/Internet restriction and you think…yeah I wonder why…what could possibly be done…
Not allow them those devices for a subject like history during an exam? No impossible.
When I brought it up here a teacher went lol but they have phones and tablets. As if its not worth even trying to prevent. And also they said they didn’t want to do paper and pencil either because its too much work to grade.
There are programs that completely lock down laptops for exams preventing you from using internet, going to the desktop, open other docs, etc so its not like it has to be paper and pencil to prevent AI usage. But, its like some professors just can’t wrap their head around the concept of not allowing full access to electronics or none at all despite the subject matter not being something like programming, but history.
Seriously. I taught university courses for several years in the mid 2010s. I didn’t have to worry about AI then, but I did have to worry about cell phones. I learned the hard way that during exams, crafty students could take pictures of the exam, upload them to chegg, and get responses back live during the exam time.
Eventually I moved to a zero-tolerance policy for all electronic devices during exams. There’s no way for me to determine if someone is using a phone for cheating or something innocuous. So during exams, I simply had it as a policy that, “having a cell phone or laptop anywhere on your person or desk IS cheating and will result in an instant zero on the exam.” Keep your damn phone in your bag during exams. I put this warning in my syllabus, wrote it all over the exams, and gave repeated verbal warnings to students. No one went into this surprised. The last thing I ever wanted to do was bust someone for an innocent mistake. But if I caught you with a cell phone? Even if I never saw you using it? Simply having a cell phone out of your bag during an exam is a zero.
Hell, I took this so seriously that I came up with my most evil policy ever - the bounty system. See your neighbor with their phone out? Rat them out and I’ll give you ten extra credit points on this exam. They have to worry not just about where my eyes are, but the eyes of everyone else around them. That’s right students, we’re going full prisoner’s dilemma. I’m not trapped in here with you, you’re trapped in here with me!
Yeah, that is what my exam experiences have been of zero tolerance for phones and sometimes laptops if exam were paper and pencil. It makes the current news now so puzzling since phones back then despite not having AI access were just as capable back then, and outside help through internet and messages was easy to get so professors back then had the same concerns of electronics being used for cheating.
Only change then and now seems like professors are not enforcing electronic restrictions as strictly anymore, and students to no surprise are taking advantage of being able to cheat out in the open.
There are programs that completely lock down laptops for exams preventing you from using internet, going to the desktop, open other docs, etc
These are generally platform specific and, by their nature, extremely invasive. For people who don’t care about their computer except as an “internet getter thingy” and use a supported environment this is fine.
I on the other hand practically can’t take such tests without using the university’s computers.
With respect to my understanding of accessibility and decency it pretty much does have to be paper and pencil if they’re going to limit information access.
Platform specific to windows and mac devices. Thing is if a university wants to create a hard to cheat environment while refusing to do paper exams that is the best option available.
Alternative is choosing to administer exams on personal electronics while doing nothing to prevent access to internet, notes, and software yet asking students to not use it.
That is just naive. And this has been the standard at least where I went to school even before AI. It’s not like laptops and smartphones are something new. Its been ubiquitous over a decade now. Yet, some schools act like they’ve never dealt with it before just because of AI when even prior to AI teachers were well aware of the cheating capabilities of electronics. Even graphing calculators.
That is just naive.
Correct. There are two operating systems people use, the rest don’t matter.
while refusing to do paper exams
Refuse? Why?
One teacher here when I brought up paper exams said they find it a hassle to grade.
Mind you I’m not approaching this from a privacy or consumer advocates position. But, as a general university that doesn’t care about that and is just choosing among options available to try to make cheating more difficult.
I’m more just amazed at how lax electronics in classes has become during exams more than anything.
Oh, even your students that are unable to use a pen and paper? Neat, don’t know how they do it
Are you aware that students that are unable to use pen and paper already get accommodations both during regular school days as well as at exams?
Some see those as demeaning.
There’s an interesting thing known as “Medical Model” Vs “Social Model” for accessibility;
Medical Model - you have an amputated leg, here’s a crutch, it is awkward and cumbersome to use and makes you feel “other”
Social Model - you have an amputated leg, it doesn’t effect you as having ramps and accessible features it’s so normalised that you don’t need to struggle with subpar solutions, and you don’t notice the difference as much
You’re currently advocating for the worse option, the Medical Model
Amputees don’t need crutches because ramps? Go to sleep.
Also, people with crutches do benefit from ramps, they’re easier to get up than stairs when you have a crutch
And accessible features
Learn to read
Why are you such a medicalist? Why do you advocate for demeaning amputees by forcing them to climb a ramp?
Instead, amputees and everyone else should be outlawed from carrying crutches or assistive devices of any kind, and all ramps should be banned. Anything else would make amputees feel different because of their disability, and you’re ableist if you oppose this idea.
they usually have a social worker that uses the pen and paper for them.
If they’re getting electronic aids from the institution, then it should have an ‘exam mode’ that it has to be put into.
I guess the only reason they don’t do electronic exams on institution controlled hardware, is - I assume - they can’t afford enough terminals. But they should have enough for the people that can’t use pen and paper.
That’s already been the standard for decades in the UK, they’re set to offline mode and incredibly locked down.
I have no idea why the schools aren’t doing that in USA other than cause y’all are somehow both incredibly behind the times in some fields of tech (accessibility, education, social care, taxes, politics) and incredibly far ahead in others (engineering, medical, physics, research, murder, warcrimes)
Or we do like the current days and give reasonable accomodations for those that need them while still preserving the integrity of the exam?
That’s what accommodations are for
why do people keep using this accessibility argument for AI? Is it cause y’all can’t ‘think of the children’ your way to getting the ignorant to agree?
I think he was “arguing” (not sure, as there’s the added /s) about the pen and paper. Not everyone can use a pen well, there’s also accessibility needs for people with severe dyslexia and such.
You’re exactly correct, the /s was showing that I ain’t doing a Poe’s Law (some comedy about terrible views is so like the actual terrible views that without a wink or other signifier it’s difficult to tell it’s a joke)
Of course, such arguments are comical. No matter what method you use, you’re going to have a system that will be incompatible with somebody’s disability. For example, the number of people who cannot use pen and paper are likely vastly outnumbered, by orders of magnitude, by those that have ADHD and find computers vastly more distracting than pen and paper. There’s no way to deliver an exam in a single form/medium without leaving people out. You can have alternate forms to accommodate them, but Gwl would whine that this is othering or demeaning. He wants every single person’s needs taken care of, while also demanding that everyone be treated in the exact same way. These are too mutually incompatible goals. Equality isn’t equity.
Gwl’s stance is profoundly anti-disabled. He has an attitude that any accommodation that places disabled students in any way apart is demeaning to the disabled and thus not an option. Of course, that is an impossible standard, as it’s impossible to accommodate every disabled person simultaneously, because many disabilities are mutually-exclusive. If you give a written exam and provide a secondary auditory form for the blind students, the blind students will feel othered. If you give an exam in audio form and offer a secondary visual form for the deaf students, the deaf students will feel called out. Universal design is a fine ideal, but it’s not actually achievable in all but a handful of cases.
When you set your standard as, “disabled students can never be made to feel othered in any way from the rest of the students,” then you make it impossible to actually accommodate the real needs of disabled students.
Who said I was being pro-AI?
I’m being pro-disabity, that’s all. AI can get in a bin.
You’d have to be really dumb to get caught by this.
People have been using the white font trick in job applications for years now.
Firstly they’re students. They haven’t done a job application yet - and quite frankly, a lot of them don’t know obvious shit because, well, they’re young.
But also, a lot of “professionals” who really should know better do stupid shit too.
and quite frankly, a lot of them don’t know obvious shit because, well, they’re young.
Being young or being a student doesn’t mean you’re dumb. Also even if you haven’t it’s still something you think about and discuss. Especially by your third and fourth years, it’s something you should be actively thinking about more and more.
I finished school two years ago by the way. Not trying to give you hope for the future or anything because a lot of people are dumb but they should know better.
This has been common practice in schools for several years now. Students are well aware of this tactic.
Im surprised that some students were caught off guard, because anyone in Dark mode can easily see the white font.
A more advanced version of this: https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2024/hiding-and-finding-text-with-unicode-tags/
Man it’s so sad to see the state of academia right now. The high water usage and noise pollution affects the entire world, especially in Madagascar.
it was poor before, when they were giving out participation grades in HS, with covid+AI its double whammy after another disaster.
32/35?! Cheesus Crackers. The microplastics were already making us stupid, now whatever’s left is being melted by corpos.
I think it’s supposed to mean 35 people failed, 32 of those because of AI.
That makes a lot more sense. Having almost all your students proven cheaters would be catastrophic, and I can’t imagine he would have remained so relatively calm and matter-of-fact.
It’s also important to remember that that’s 32 college students who didn’t proofread. How many more noticed his shenanigans when highlighting the text, or simply used LLMs for only part of their essay?
It’s rare but with certain cohorts I’ve watched it happen. And one instance it was basically an entire class that just copied and pasted the answers to their book work off of the internet.
They all basically use the same source so everyone of them use the same boring metaphor, etc.
the university would immediately investigating if all students failed the class. they usually do this if a large proportion dont show up to class as well.
I don’t think this is the case for every school and professor, depending on how hard it is to get a professor for the subject they teach.
Personal anecdote ahead:
There’s one at my school that has over half the class drop every single semester, every single class because his expectations for freshman in a core class are more in line with what you should be expecting of seniors or grad students. Who knows how many that don’t drop fail, because he responds to requests for assistance or advice by essentially telling you to figure it out yourself.
But he teaches classes that tons of international students want to take, so he makes the school too much money (they still keep the money if you don’t drop before the 2 week drop deadline, way too early for most to see how fucked his classes are).
The funny thing is I took a class of his not knowing he was like that bc it was online, happened to be in my wheelhouse and I got an A after spending a stupid amount of time and effort on my papers. I needed another class and decided to take him in person because I genuinely did learn a lot from the other class, and oh boy… noped right the fuck out of there after making a genuine effort to see if I would be able to even do the project worth 1/3rd of our grade.
similar situation, we had a math teach in CC, who was teaching above the material for the class ( getting into matrices, and discrete math in adv alg class) 2/3 of the class dropped, get this nobody in the class knew he actually dropped the students himself(because they wernt passing because he was teaching material way more advanced than the class subject, and he forgot to tell them) only after i actually voiced my concern, did the other students bailed, otherwise they would took the whole class wasted thier time. he taught at night and a different UNI as well, im guessing thats why the school dint catch on. if only i knew about RATEMYPROF i wouldve avoided him, and many others to.(most people ended with a W), i have suspicion he hates teaching CC CLASSES(he would often call people terrible for not learning) and did say people do graduate HS with a low skill in math. since it was a night class it was more annoying, because it was more material jammed in one day, and people have to slog through the semester just to take night class.
another course, a higher math class i was in, most of the student dont bother showing up til test time, like 75% of the class is gone most of the time, the school noticed it somehow and sent an auditor to sit in the class, i assume its because they w ill cancel the class because people wernt showing up to the class anymore. The students did get wind of it, and everyone showed up when the auditor did, so nothing happened. it was an easy class though, and the teacher was retiring soon then anyways.
“Thirty-two of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response,” he explained in a viral TikTok, sounding incredulous. “And apparently they didn’t proofread it.”
In don’t know, that sounds like only three people passed that portion the mid-term.
Professors should not be wasting time on gotcha traps for cheats. Mid terms should be hand written on paper.
AI summary also can be copied by hand. But in exams the use of AI can be filtered even the internet access itself over the server of the school as only network access. In a lot of schools in Europe the network signal is blocked, only WiFi/LAN from the school server. Signal jammer are even often used in opera- and concert buildings. No internet > no valid AI
Here isn’t possible to connect to anything which isn’t controlled, less in exams.
It is next level of laziness to not check what AI generates for you.
In researches it’s never good to use an LLM, I use sometimes an AI search assistant (concept and semantic searrch) since several years, which use and summarize the results from relevant webcontent in real time with the corresponding sources, which permits to contrast it (always a fact check needed in internet, with and also without AI, in general too much BS in the web), not slop created by the AI itself. This is IMHO a legit use of AI, as helpfull tool, not one to substitute my own research.
My software dev colleagues don’t do it and they’re getting paid. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest to hear that a bunch of students wouldn’t, lol
Are cheating and plagiarism no longer grounds for immediate expulsion…?
Universities don’t teach students out of a sense of duty and honor.
Students are their funding. Failing these 32 students could cost the school millions.
US universities maybe.
Any university that has funding proportional to student headcount; this can apply to public universities.
The upper management of high schools are generally the kinda people who’d say “it’s not cheating, it’s just a tool”
My experience with high school is that they would want you to cheat so the school’s numbers look good. The consequences of No Child Left Behind will be felt for a long time.
That professor was more charitable than I would have been, not failing all those students out of the entire class immediately.
Back when I was in university, if you got caught cheating, you got expelled immediately. Now, all you get is possibly a slightly lower score on your midterm?
This is bullshit
I hate how many posts on LinkedIn are “AI is inevitable, we might as well use it everywhere”… um, no. Develop critical thinking and the ability to do it on your own and then, maybe, just maybe, use it as a tool, not a replacement.
Why fail the other three? Only 32 out of 35 were caught.
I hoped it was obvious when I said “all those students” I was talking about the ones that were caught blatantly cheating.
Because my guess is that you don’t understand why you’re being downvoted:
You don’t have to cheat to fail a test. Some people take a test and fail. That happened for three people.
No, I’m pretty sure he had 35 students total take the exam and that 32 of them failed. I think that the person above me meant to say all of the students which cheated should be failed from the entire class not just the test, but it not being explicit caused confusion.
Then why are you assuming he would fail the other three?
Ah, I see. Being pedantic about the use of the word “all”. I applaud the pedantry. Have a down vote. You earned it. I always appreciate hardworking pedants.
I just told you
32 out of 35.
That tracks. I hate over 90% of people
Good on the three people who wasn’t caught, either because the don’t use AI or because they at least read the question and the llm output. And gold star if any of them noticed the white text but didn’t tell the rest of the students!
Wow this gen is pathetic. 0 tech literacy
Did a paper with a 20-year old. Intelligent, well-spoken girl. She was absolutely astonished that there are keyboard shortcuts for Cut and Paste.
To be fair, the windows tooltip ui has been getting Fisher-Price’ed with it’s visual operation buttons, and retraction of information
Never underestimate the lengths an intelligent (but lacking in ‘common sense’) person will go to when learning something the hard way simply because the easy way didn’t exist in their mind. The results of that hard work on their depth and breadth of knowledge is unmatched.
been that way for almost two decades.
Since smart phones and Chromebooks really.
Well they aren’t teaching themselves. They’re learning from their predecessors like every generation before them. You think they’re all struggling academically by choice?
The lesson here is that US university diploma is worth as much as toilet paper. They have a profit motive to not expel cheating students. EU countries should stop accepting US diplomas as legally valid.
They do not even care to test students properly - how can they even use AI? Why not let the write the answers to a midterm on paper in a supervised hall? Or some kind of secure computing environment Seriously what is going on lol. They aren’t being tested at all really.
The lesson here is that US university diploma is worth as much as toilet paper
That is not new, and it’s not just in the US.
My degrees haven’t mattered in a long time - my resume is long enough for that. But when they still did matter, I made damn sure I told the headhunter at all job interviews I went to that I got my degrees from this and that year, when it was common knowledge that getting degrees from those unis at that time still meant something.
i dont think the situation is very common, USA students going to the EU, usually the ones seeking employment are often at the phd levels, which is another can of worms.
students just get ZEROS for the test, or the course, or they get a notice from the dean. academic dismissal(expel) is usually used for people who are failing thier classes more than a couple semesters. maybe the more prestigious school wil expel people for cheating, but they would probably have to prove it, and then avoid a lawsuit by the students.
If they’re doing this in other classes then they’re either going to get caught and fail or they won’t get caught but won’t have learned anything. What are these people going to be doing out in the world when they get older?
They’ll be getting their MBAs.
They can’t get a master’s if they don’t graduate with a bachelor’s first.
depends how universitiy grad programs calculate your gpa, some with take Ws, and 0s into consideration when it comes to calculating it.
I’d agree, but it seems universities don’t fail anyone anymore, particularly not lucrative out-of-state tuition payers
FWIW in-state students are usually just as lucrative for universities, since the tuition discount is paid by state grants.
By the time they get a job, AI will be doing all the work anyway so I guess it doesn’t matter
No it won’t. What the professor did illustrates this. You have to have a human proof reading AI. No matter how smart computers get, they’ll always be dumb as shit.
The people demanding AI integration don’t care if it works. They were sold that it increases productivity so it must be worth it.
You can live in the AI designed house and I’ll live in the architect designed house. I live by a fault line so I’m a little more sensitive to niceties like not having it fall on me.
I’d love to have heard the argument from the two students challenging their failing grade for that
Depends on the prompt they gave to build their defense…
A reasonable defense would be screen readers, or any other accessibility features. With the exception of headings or paragraph tags, formatting information isn’t relayed by a screen reader. Anyone using one would see the white text as normal text.
I’ve heard enough stories from teachers adding weird requests to instructions to see if students actually read the instructions, that I would say Madagascar as requested if I were using a screen reader, or the browser’s reader mode while working on the assignment.
probably they have grad school riding on those grades probably? grad schools, MD, PHD, DONT take very kindly to have 0s or Withdraws on your transcript.
Ah yes, then they can spend thousands more on an even fancier sheet of paper. It’s a shame they are devaluing their degrees like this, because as the world catches on about how common this is, they will not garner much respect for having completed one.
Certainly when I’m hiring I have usually expected that someone with a university education might have good written communication or language skills. But now I’m realizing that this may no longer be sensible.
Gibson shared some of the most examples in a follow-up video.
The most examply of examples, presumable?
If you’re just rehashing someone else’s video for your “article” can’t you at least check your language?
At least you know it was written by a human 🙂 I honestly welcome dumb spelling and grammar mistakes nowadays - and I never thought I’d ever say that - as a sign that I’m probably not reading slop.
Soon the slop will just start dropping words and making typos because it’s learned that’s what we prefer.
Yroure absolooply write.
Yeah I too believe this will happen some day. The key to spreading AI seems to be tricking people into interacting with it.
But for now, it seems LLMs are still totally focused on talking like marketdroids or salesmen you wouldn’t lend your wallet to.
They’re the examplest!
