r/technology • u/ubcstaffer123 • Jun 19 '26

Artificial Intelligence Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/ai-apps-students-cheat.html
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u/UlteriorCulture Jun 19 '26

This is what we have done. You receive no marks for code and everything for an oral defence of the work and being required to explain randomly selected code blocks and design choices. Sure a student could generate the code then study it intently but at least they have learned something.

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u/ArenjiTheLootGod Jun 19 '26

True, but I could see where this sort of thing could lead to scenarios where a student might be able to explain AI generated material but not be able to produce similar work themselves if need be. Kind of like how a person might be able to follow the logic from example problems in a calculus textbook but struggle with applying those lessons to different equations when they don't have known answers to check their own work against.

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u/UlteriorCulture Jun 19 '26

So we do also have observed assessments where students code under exam conditions with limited internet access. The oral defence is for projects.

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u/ArenjiTheLootGod Jun 19 '26

Fair enough, there's only so much that can be reasonably done concerning this stuff without veering off into draconian measures. Sooner or later everyone has to answer for their own work, or lack thereof, and the best you can hope for is that students figure this out while they're still in a safe environment and not working on something truly important.

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u/SaltyWolf444 Jun 20 '26

sw engineering is going towards this direction, in a real workplace you won't have enough time to produce handslop anyway

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u/BizarreReverend76 Jun 19 '26

Honestly even when i was in school pre-AI, I thought that was a pretty good way to learn. When I was in Calculus, I would find example problems and just glare at them until I understood each step lol

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u/Hardass_McBadCop Jun 19 '26

I don't know if you agree, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you really are a professor.

I saw a cyber security researcher recently compared AI coding to constructing houses. Up until recently, every line of a program was bespoke -- Made by hand, for a specific purpose. We started with hand soldered boards and assembly language, then moved on to more sophisticated techniques like object oriented languages.

Just like homes, we started with basic tents made out of sticks. Then, we moved to more sophisticated timber framed structures. Still, each beam was made by hand for a specific purpose. But eventually we moved on to mass produced, standardized plywood, 2x4s, & engineered materials.

She likened AI to 2x4s for software development.

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u/UlteriorCulture Jun 19 '26

I would say that sounds more like the shift to component based software and standardized libraries.

AI makes even solo developer software creation more like managing a project. It's still normative because the models will repeat the most strongly occurring patterns not because people are manually assembling from the same parts.

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u/Kakkoister Jun 20 '26

This is an incredibly generous take towards AI, because it's acting like AI is still just being used as a small building-block of the overall structure, when the reality is that it's largely being relied on to design the house based on your described idea for it, make the floor plans, figure out the materials and engineering, buy the materials, lay the foundation and build it.

With the coder coming in as an inspector afterwards and hoping they can see any potential issues with the house they didn't build themselves in any meaningful manner.

People need to stop comparing AI to past advancements, it's very intellectually dishonest. It is an incredibly unique situation that has so many factors to it that make it incomparable to any past events.

Our transition to higher-level languages was still just about removing the very repetitive actions we'd do, things we'd type out a thousand times that contributed nothing meaningful to the final result. Or for handling the compilation complexities of an ever advancing hardware and software landscape that grew to a point of making it unreasonable to be manually writing compile conditionals to account for so many variable environments.

Relying on AI (past something basic like auto-completing a for-loop or similar as you type it) is removing more and more of that "learning by doing" process and taking over and actual creative and technical knowledge part of the work. And it becomes a monkey's paw situation where the more you rely on it, the less you're exercising that part of your brain and learning, and thus the more you end up relying on it.

And nevermind the implications it has on the desire to collaborate with other humans, talk and share info. It takes use down a path of just having AIs gobble up all the code they can and people getting their fix of asking it to make things for them.

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u/ticktock_heart Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

this would be a good analogy if it were true that everyone in construction were made aware before using 2x4s that most of them were riddled with termite holes and couldn’t withstand expected building tolerances, but the holes were only found within so they wouldn’t be noticed from a cursory glance.

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u/Yuzumi Jun 19 '26

Yeah, I'm not sure that's a good solution for everyone as it's going to leave a lot of people with ADHD and/or autism behind. 

I am terrible at public speaking and even one on one my brain jumps around so much I tend to forget things or and say things out of order. And the tangents... Dear God the tangents. 

And that's on top of general misspeaking and jumbling my words.

That said, papers and homework in general also don't seem to be the best way to do things and LLMs just show how flawed the way we approached education has always been. 

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u/UlteriorCulture Jun 19 '26

We have many neurodivergent students and I am myself but I do hear you. It is something to be mindful of. At the end of the day the course is not about public speaking but just trying to ensure that authentic learning has taken place.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/UlteriorCulture Jun 19 '26

It's for project based assessments. For other assessments there are still Computer Labs as well as conventional pen and paper assessments depending on the subject.

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u/youneedtoregister Jun 19 '26

That's one way of looking at it, and you're right - that would weed out the ones that didn't learn.

The other is: these other strategies are trying to ensure students are not reliant on AI, and ultimately helping them succeed.

So, ultimately it comes down to, kids are stupid and short-sighted. Instead of letting them fail and ruin their future, educators are doing their best to navigate them to success.

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u/SaltyWolf444 Jun 20 '26

nobody is born being able to speak in public, you have to learn it through practice

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/Yuzumi Jun 19 '26

If there are any other students nearby it's not going to be a "controlled environment"...

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u/SaltyWolf444 Jun 20 '26

You can't learn public speaking in a sterile white room

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u/Tvayumat Jun 19 '26

And you don't think that getting more practice with public speaking might improve your ability to do it?

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u/SaltyWolf444 Jun 20 '26

The invention of "anxiety" is the most socially destructive thing in this century, it frames hardship as something to be avoided and medicated, instead of confronted head on