r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jul 27 '26

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/LurkingTamilian Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

From the article:

Being written in white text meant the instructions were invisible. Sure enough, 32 out of the 35 students across two classes simply copied the question, pasted it into a chatbot, then copy and pasted its output into the answer window.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/ZigZagLax44 Jul 27 '26

The youngest Gen Z and older Gen Alpha for sure. Gen Z is 14-29 year olds so vast majority of them are out of high school and in the work force.

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u/caninehere Jul 27 '26

As someone with a young kid I wonder what it will be like years from now. Presumably the same problems will be present and probably intensified.

I feel like it may be worse for current students though. Some parents/teachers may have tried to teach their kids/students not to cheat but this is a whole other level, imagine you are a kid who has your high school years absolutely obliterated by COVID and then after that suddenly have this shiny new tool to help you cheat on steroids in high school/college. Whereas a younger kid now, we can spend many years telling them about the dangers of this stuff and trying to impress the importance of actual learning over getting a certain grade.

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u/Wise_Owl5404 Jul 27 '26

yeah, no. until early to mid-20s people are usually getting an education and only "part of the work force" in a minor capacity. so it's half at least and they already had significant years of their education demolished by covid with nothing done to amend that

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/Wise_Owl5404 Jul 27 '26

Wait I forgot that the US has a completely absurd educational system. My bad.

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u/DrPayItBack Jul 27 '26

I mean you’re the one who goofed so may wanna look in a mirror lol

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u/Wise_Owl5404 Jul 27 '26

Oh wait, I forgot. Only Yanks have an educational system and only Yank kids had their schooling destroyed by Covid.

American centrism strikes again. Or maybe it's just you all's lack of reading comprehension idk.

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u/DrPayItBack Jul 27 '26

If it makes you feel better, I have no doubt you had a poor education.

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u/TamaDarya Jul 28 '26

Being out of education by 22 is the norm in most of the world. Bachelor's degrees are 3-5 years everywhere I can think of. And this assumes you even get a higher education. Just take the L.