this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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In an online discussion post, Alcorn State University history professor Dr. Jason Gibson posed a question that represented part of his students' midterm. It was about the...

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[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 47 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

How stupid are these kids to not even check the answer? That’s the biggest issue here lol

[–] 87Six@lemmy.zip 15 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Well, it's always the stupid ones, that's why stuff like this is effective. You will never catch a good student cheating with that method

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Some people are too smart to fall for it, and dumb people know they're dumb, so they don't try, because they know they'll get caught.

You need those special ones who are too dumb to actually learn, but still think they are smart enough to outsmart a system that is beyond the comprehension of their puny minds. In other words, MAGAs.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Why try and bring politics into this? That train of thought you just showed points to a lack of intelligence, such I guess must mean you’re “MAGA”, right?

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Sounds like middle management, too. Wanting to take credit for the work of others.

[–] J92@lemmy.world 24 points 19 hours ago

Its complacency, which is the worst thing to be engendering in the next generation.

Get them to the point that they don't know how to study or struggle, and you have a whole generation relying on your shitty LLM, and the dumber you are the less you know what you don't know until it's telling you what plants crave, sponsored by brawndo

[–] Sirdubdee@piefed.social 41 points 23 hours ago (5 children)

What a waste of money. Why go to school if you’re just going to use AI? What are you paying for?

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Why go to school if you’re just going to use AI? What are you paying for?

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.

[–] NotEasyBeingGreen@slrpnk.net 7 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

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. 😄

[–] Eximius@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

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).

[–] Sirdubdee@piefed.social 1 points 10 hours ago

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.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 9 points 14 hours ago

A piece of paper you can get in front of your parents, then wipe your ass with.

[–] Yttra@lemmy.world 52 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

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)

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 5 points 17 hours ago

Getting practice at ctrl-C, ctrl-V?

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Oh no, that is super fucking lazy (I'm not even sure the word for it is lazy..), they are literally copying the assignment statement into an LLM, pasting the answer without reviewing it (not even the slightest curiosity about what was written?) and they're done?

[–] Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 176 points 1 day ago (63 children)

This is hysterical. Like the cheaters couldn't even be bothered to proof read what the AI wrote to make sure it was correct.

[–] Seppo@sopuli.xyz 4 points 11 hours ago

In my experience "AI"-users aren't very literate.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

There have to be at least a couple that can't read.

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[–] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 113 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Here saved you a click and and badly written "article"

In an online discussion post, Alcorn State University history professor Dr. Jason Gibson posed a question that represented part of his students' midterm. It was about the Industrial Revolution, but knowing how many students now rely solely on artificial intelligence for their answers, he secretly embedded instructions telling the AI to include information about Madagascar in a way that makes no sense.

Being written in white text meant the instructions were invisible.

(...)

Had any of these cheaters even bothered to check what the AI had generated, they'd likely have noticed the strange references to the island country constantly appearing in an essay about the Industrial Revolution.

[–] catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Lol? How is the article badly written? Also it's like 3 paragraphs long and took me 60 seconds to read. Pretending that's impossible is almost as bad as using AI to cheat on an exam.

[–] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It reads like a Facebook post, which IMO makes it poorly written

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 37 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I don't know that the article was all that badly written, but you missed a couple of points that I'd call essential:

One, it was 32 students out of 35 total who used AI and then didn't even bother to check it, so only 3 students even made an honest attempt in the entire semester.

Two, the professor told the students that they were allowed to contest the grade if they wanted, and only 2 out of the 32 students even tried to contest it.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago

Also later in the article it mentions another professor who estimated that only 2 of their 86 students didn't use AI to cheat.

Like, what are we even doing any more?

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