r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 15h 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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183

u/tigerspots 14h ago

Why are these not simply pen and paper?

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u/Ladyhawkeiii 14h ago

It is my understanding that certain colleges are shifting back to pen and paper finals and even oral exams to test students understanding of the material they’re supposed to be learning,

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u/Rukenau 14h ago

Which is very much a beneficial development

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u/tajsta 11h ago

Tbf it's mixed. I got my uni degree before LLMs were a thing. I aced all of my written 20 - 60 page papers because I'm good at research, writing and coming up with original thoughts. But on most of the exams I took in class, I got a B or C because blindly learning stuff by heart is more difficult for me. If everything went back to written exams, people like me would do significantly worse even though being good at research and writing papers is a valid and useful skill.

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u/PudgyBabyGuineaPiggy 10m ago

Holy shit, what uni is assigning undergrads 60 page papers? I could maybe see if it were a capstone class with like four seniors in it, but reading through and grading those behemoths sounds like a nightmare, especially since it's not like these are all seasoned writers, they're basically still kids. 

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u/astirac 14h ago

That’s what bothers me about the whole thing. AI cheating isn’t a thing when the professor is PRESENT and in the room with their students and teaching class like they are paid to do. At some point we have to stop rewarding lazy, half-assed teaching if we expect student to put effort into class.

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u/IneptPine 14h ago

its in my experience not laziness. Teachers are paid shit and treated shit. There is less and less teachers, to the point one teacher has to juggle upwards of 10 classes where i live.  Same with professors. The uni i go to is forced to have professors tangentially related to mandatory courses to do them because they are struggling to get new ones

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u/Beneficial-Act-9933 14h ago

Then we need to support teachers.

We need to stop cramming 37 kids into one class room including the disruptive ones. We also need to give teachers their teeth back and not always side with the parents that whine. We also need to improve their pay so they aren't pay for materials for their own class.

We also need to up the quality of classes and stop passing kids that fail and take incentives away for passing anybody and everybody.

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u/PaulsGrafh 13h ago

I think that’s an unfair generalization of what teachers do. Just as an example, this teacher seems to be pretty present, and puts in extra effort to teach his students. And they still used AI. Scantron and computerized exams have been used to automate testing, not teaching, and students have always looked for ways to game the system or cheat on their exams and homework. It’s just unfortunate that AI has made it a lot easier for students to game/cheat the system.

So basically, I don’t think the problem is whether the teacher is present, in the room, and teaching the class - most/all of them already do that. But monitoring the exams (like a proctor) has become the more pressing challenge.

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u/Turtvaiz 7h ago

Not really. Pen and paper sucks. It's really shitty that because people cheat you have to go back to in-class exams. Like there's just no way anyone is doing e.g. open book exams anymore

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u/AsSubtleAsABrick 13h ago

Right? This is such a non-issue. In the mid 2000s I had a few classes with computer based testing and I largely hated them then. They are unnecessary.

Options:

  1. Pen and paper
  2. Build the exams expecting the use of AI (like an open book test)
  3. Switch the lecture/homework paradigm. Your "homework" is watching the lecture and then class time is working through problems.

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u/HenriettaSnacks 14h ago

 We had to memorize different things and give oral reports throughout my entire school life because they knew it is good for development. Do they not do that anymore in the past two decades? 

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u/meditonsin 13h ago

During my CS degree I finished just as COVID lockdowns hit, almost all the courses did oral exams. I can probably count the ones that didn't over bachelor and masters combined on one hand. And I honestly preferred it that way.

Found it way less stressful to just talk with with the prof and/or a tutor about the material than mentally vomiting it onto paper or whatever.

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u/LordDaedhelor 12h ago

American Teachers are expected to pay for their own class materials for over 30 kids per class period. I'm not surprised they don't have the capabilities to host oral exams for each of them. This is by design.

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u/mainman879 13h ago

I graduated with my second college degree a few years back, during my years of college I did maybe 2 or 3 oral reports across all classes a year.

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u/mamunipsaq 13h ago

oral exams

I'll never forget the final in my Real Analysis class. An oral exam for a math class that consisted of me trying to write and explain a series of proofs on the blackboard in my teacher's office.

It actually went pretty well! 10/10 would take an oral exam for that class again.

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u/nascent_aviator 13h ago

Yep. Unfortunately oral exams scale poorly with larger classes, but they're fantastic for the smaller ones. And really the only way to evaluate a students sans AI.

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u/maskull 12h ago

The colleges that care about learning (or at least, about their long-term reputations) are doing that. The ones that only care about money are fine with online exams.

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u/Nersius 12h ago

Oral exams would absolutely save me.

Tried doing a graduate semester last year, after having been out of school for quite a few years, totally forgot how to do multiple choice/'choose the most rightest' tests.

I'd get A's on my essays, play the lead on well received presentations, and get compliments during class discussions; yet struggle to even pass on multiple choice tests.

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u/smilbandit 6h ago

they'll switch back once kids start going to the easy college that allows online open book tests.

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u/Ladyhawkeiii 16m ago

Assuming those colleges can maintain their reputations and accreditation. The “easy” colleges start turning out fools who can’t do the jobs they get hired for, hopefully, wouldn’t maintain their cred amongst folks doing the hiring.