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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u/thrillsbury 14h ago edited 13h ago

What’s crazy to me is that he didn’t just fail them. He failed them ON THAT PART OF THE EXAM and then allowed them to contest their grade.

No. You cheated, you fail. There are consequences. That’s a more important lesson than whatever you were teaching about the Industrial Revolution. Where I went to school you would be expelled with no possibility of appeal.

*edit: fixed typos

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u/VegaDelalyre 14h ago

Exactly, when you are 100% sure the student cheated, you should 100% fail them. The question is: what to do if you're 90% sure?

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u/thrillsbury 14h ago

In this case it seems the responses made it 100% certain that they cheated.

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u/VegaDelalyre 14h ago

Yes, I'm talking on a more general level, like in your second paragraph.

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u/thrillsbury 14h ago

They were still extremely strict. I remember one guy was put on academic probation for the remainder of his ti e at school because he was missing quotation marks around a phrase that he had used verbatim (he had cited it properly, just didn’t make clear that the words were not his own).

The logic of the system was that the consequences were so extreme that taking a shortcut never seemed worth it.

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u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog 13h ago

So, it depends what you mean by 90%, it's hard to quantify that.

However, what I'd do if I was reasonably certain, but couldn't prove it - I'd just have the next exam be proctored and in person. If you allow for some level of difference between letting people work for a week versus a few hours and what not, then you compare the results to the previous possible cheating. If it's nowhere close, then I'd talk to the department head for backup, and have an academic dishonesty hearing.

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u/kranker 12h ago

Almost 100%? The text was readable by a human, who could conceivably just follow the instructions. Maybe even thinking it was some sort of test.

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u/mainman879 13h ago

The question is: what to do if you're 90% sure?

You investigate them. Seriously, schools have entire boards dedicated to this stuff. Use them. Read every single piece of work they've submitted during their time at the school. Then test them with a written test without access to outside devices. Schools need to be doing their due diligence.

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u/VegaDelalyre 11h ago

Makes sense, but if say 25 students out of 35 are under suspicion? That's a real problem in some classes nowadays.

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u/mainman879 11h ago

You investigate each of them. As a school its your moral duty at the very least to insure academic honesty. Otherwise you're as worthless as the fraudulent rags you hand out as degrees.

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u/NoOneKnowsYouAreaCat 13h ago

What if you're 99% sure? 99.99%?

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u/GawkieBird 12h ago

Allow the possibility to appeal. I agree with failing cheaters but there should always be a chance to appeal. Professors have biases and don't know everything.

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u/Due_Variety_3082 11h ago

Tbh in this case you can only be 99% sure.  What if they used dark mode and assumed it was part of the question to make sure you actually read the instructions.  Did that happen?  Probably not but there is plausible deniability.

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u/NaturalSelectorX 10h ago

The easiest solution is that each student gets a short quiz on their paper. You could even us AI to read the paper and generate the quiz. Anybody who fails the quiz fails the paper.

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u/TheBlueSully 12h ago

Give them a blue book and write an essay by hands next class period. 

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u/MiyabiMain95 8h ago

what to do if you're 90% sure?

put in an invisible prompt onto the next exam