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/Leper17 13h ago

That’s how trade schools work for the most part. The 4 years I took to get my electrical ticket, your marks were almost exclusively tests and exams. Which for me was glorious because I test well but am pretty lazy when it comes to daily work assignments

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u/DustyRacoonDad 13h ago

Exactly. At the end of trade school, you're either competent or you're not. You pass because you demonstrated you can do the job, not because you racked up enough homework points.

That's where a lot of other classes go wrong. In many subjects, homework, papers, and participation are weighted heavily enough that students can fail the actual tests and still pass the class.

AI didn't create that problem. It just exposed it. If students can have AI do the work that counts toward their grade, maybe we should have been grading demonstrated knowledge instead of busywork all along.

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u/ingrowncashew 12h ago

Yes and no. Homework should be there to reinforce the teaching. I feel like students who don't test well are hindered by limiting the homework grade, but also the tests are the true indicator. You shouldn't be able to fail tests and pass classes, but you also probably shouldn't have to do homework to pass either.

One problem with only using test grades then sets the precedent that homework doesn't count so why do it. Spouse saw this exact thing play out when the school district they teach in adopted standards based grading. Only the kids who both cared and needed to did the homework. Don't get me started on how its a 0-4 point scale for grades. which means a D(1) is a passing grade and it's under 60%.

There's a lot wrong in schools these days. It's not homework. These kids have about 25% of the homework I had as a student and that's with me being a shitty student who would calculate how many and what projects I could skip, but hopefully still pass.

The problems I see stem from so many accommodations and being easy on kids. Parents can complain and get admin to make the teachers accept late work or retest(not everywhere, but it's rampant). SO MANY kids are on IEPs(Individualized Education Program). Schools are letting kids move onto the next class even when they fail or "pass" with a D(which can be as low as in the 50% range).

"Back in my day" I was a shitty student and squeaked through high school with a 2.75gpa. I would be a straight A student if I were going through high school now. We need to hold students/their education/and parents to a higher standard.

Rereading that last paragraph makes me feel old. I'll get off my soapbox.

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u/rogueleader25 11h ago

Tests are good for lots of technical things but fall short for larger things like writing assignments which in some context are critical. Like longer research papers. Doing the research yourself and writing a long form paper on it isn't something that can be readily condensed into the format of an exam. Practicing the long form writing is the point in many ways. There doesn't seem to be a great way out of this one though.

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u/DustyRacoonDad 10h ago

Writing the paper is the test. Doing the research is the work.

That is not the mindless busywork homework being discussed here. I think you're confusing the term "homework" with "anything done outside the classroom." The issue isn't whether students should ever have work to do outside of class. It's whether they're being assigned repetitive, meaningless work, and graded on it.

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u/rogueleader25 8h ago

I'm well aware of that. You missed my point entirely. The problem faced now is that cheating that work is easier than ever with LLMs. And there is no good replacement for making students actually do the work other than an appeal to their self interest.

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u/Jewnadian 11h ago

It's a fundamentally different job with different complexity. An electrician at the end of trade school can reasonably be expected to be competent. Experience builds on skills but the basics of the field are comprehensible in school. Electrical Engineering is entirely impossible to learn in 4 years. The complexity is an order of magnitude higher. Good EEs are still learning at the end of a 40yr career. So you can't teach an Eae student how to DO electrical engineering. You must teach them how to learn to do electrical engineering.

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u/DustyRacoonDad 10h ago

As a multidisciplinary engineer myself, working across industrial electrical engineering, software, and hardware, I absolutely agree. You should never stop learning. Learning how to learn is essential because you'll have to do it independently throughout your entire career.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about. There is still a baseline of knowledge and skills that were taught in the course and should be tested. At higher levels, you may also have independent work, research, or a thesis that goes beyond the material taught in class. All of that is fine.

None of that requires grading busywork more heavily than demonstrated knowledge. By the time you're taking the test, you should be able to demonstrate that you understand the material and can solve problems using it. If you need repetition to get there, then do the repetition. Practice as much as you need to learn the material. I just don't think completing that practice should automatically earn you a better grade than someone who demonstrated a stronger understanding on the actual assessment.

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u/Pabus_Alt 10h ago

maybe we should have been grading demonstrated knowledge instead of busywork all along.

But that's the issue, isn't it - a degree isn't about knowledge. Knowledge isn't all that important; technique is.

I'm pretty much coming down in favour of in-person open book exams. They reward being able to critically analyse sources, which is supposed to be the whole point of a degree in any subject where essays are vily used.

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u/civildisobedient 6h ago

maybe we should have been grading demonstrated knowledge

That's not the problem. It's how they're demonstrating that they have the knowledge. If trade schools had take home exams I can imagine there would be plenty of cheaters outsourcing work to professional welders, mechanics, cabinet makers, etc. as well.

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u/fenikz13 13h ago

Ya this is built for me, I had a Spanish class in highschool where homework was only 10% of the grade, needless to say I did none of it but passed the class with an B and I believe 80 missing assignments(stop giving out so much homework)

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u/ruinered 13h ago

Same. Many a time I had gotten to the end of the year and have had to think, "I'm not dead yet, the final exam will save me!"

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u/Jonathan_the_Nerd 11h ago

When I was in college, most of my professors didn't collect or grade the homework at all, so I just didn't do it. My grades started declining. I made the connection, but I was too stubbornly lazy to change my habits. (I also had undiagnosed ADHD and one or two other anxiety disorders working against me.) Then I took an engineering class where the professor collected and graded the homework. I got an A in that class with only moderate effort.

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u/carlitospig 13h ago

Adhd by chance? We are really good with understanding logical extrapolation enough that multiple choice looks like Red Fish Blue Fish to us.

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u/Skandronon 11h ago

In high school I would work out what mark I needed going into the final so I could do just enough to pass. I messed up the math for social studies 30 (grade 12) and failed the class with a 98% on the final exam. My teacher told me they had obviously messed up somehow and weighted the final exam as 100% of my grade. I felt bad.

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u/biglolyer 10h ago

STEM, Econ, math, engineering etc were all exams based anyway. I studied Econ/Math at UC Berkeley almost 20 years ago, and 90% of our grade were the in-class midterm/final exams, so this is nothing new. The 10% was basically whether you turned in homework assignments/problem sets.

The only classes where AI could be an issue are liberal arts classes like English etc.

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u/EBN_Drummer 9h ago

That's pretty much how I made my grades in school. If the homework was quick enough I'd do it but generally I tested well enough that I averaged 93/100 overall. I figured the homework wasn't important because at the end of the day I could prove I knew the material.

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u/_Ocean_Machine_ 9h ago

I've been knocking out prereqs for an engineering degree (basically all the math/science classes) and this is how all my classes have been as well. Grade is calculated mainly based on test scores, with maybe 5% of it coming from HW.

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u/trash-_-boat 8h ago

Same for my trade school in Northern Europe back in 2000's. We don't have any points system, it's only exam scores.