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Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI
(www.techspot.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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Technology
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What a waste of money. Why go to school if you’re just going to use AI? What are you paying for?
University degrees serve at least two functions.
One function is a sort of guarantee that you have the knowledge and skills of the particular degrees you obtain.
The other function is to show that you are the kind of person who gets university degrees... whether that is because you are competent or just that you come from a socio-economic background that values university degrees nad can afford them.
For that second function cheating matters very little if you don't get caught.
For the first function, it might also not be super relevant. I had to take a humanities class for my computer science degree. If I had cheated on the theater exam it would not have made me a worse programmer. 😄
To your last paragraph: Yes and no. It's not only the material that is taught, but also the approaches that you learn while dealing with it.
If you cheated on the theater exam, and masterfully didn't get caught. On paper: great. In reality: social settings might be harder to deal with, because you would approach them in the same way. Just it's not visible on paper.
If you didnt cheat and flunked: You're a programmer who can stamp out code, and most likely unable to deal with anything else at work that is more theatrical than cold hard logic and math.
I always saw education (and most intelligent people do corroborate as well) as a training ground, not entirely for the substance taught, but to show that you can deal with it (your function 2, but more in the sense, given such problems, you will know how to approach them, and where to look for knowledge, because nobody remembers everything).
Ah I had a different perspective in school. I had the guidance counselors sell me on how useful each class would be before I gave them my hard earned money. It’s expensive so I only wanted to buy valuable lessons.
A piece of paper you can get in front of your parents, then wipe your ass with.
The piece of paper that companies keep demanding you have, despite their AI black box always filtering you out for hyper specific and arbitrary reasons?
The real answer is they're probably just lazy, but I wouldn't blame anyone who doesn't really value the work that goes into their degrees and diplomas anymore (not that I'm against post-secondary education, though)
You could also ask what good is a school that only teaches you things that can be reliably answered by AI.
Or, if you prefer, why is the school curriculum defining and evaluating progress in a way that can be passed by an AI.
IMHO it shows that certain subjects rely way too much on rote memorization and loose cognitive associations and should maybe take this moment to rethink their approach.
Literally all knowledge and understanding requires memorization of some sort and the understanding of reality and prior information.
It is difficult to fathom the level of wrong in this comment.
Here's the thing people who lack knowledge, critical thinking and understanding about the how the world works. Still form opinions and makes decisions as if they did have that knowledge and understanding. Which negatively affects everyone else.
Getting practice at ctrl-C, ctrl-V?