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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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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. π
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. Itβs expensive so I only wanted to buy valuable lessons.