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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2.2k

u/SinibusUSG Jul 27 '26

Frankly if universities want to actually stop this they have to treat it like the academic dishonesty it is and start expelling people.

1.5k

u/BTMarquis Jul 27 '26

This might sound crazy, but they could also have them use a pen and paper to take tests.

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u/dirty_cuban Jul 27 '26

I mean sure but if bank employees are stealing money by slipping bills into their pockets, the answer isn’t to mandate clothing without pockets. The answer is to fire the thieves.

Mandating pen and paper doesn’t change the fact that you have academically dishonest students who surely will cheat in other ways.

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u/Mutex70 Jul 27 '26

Ever seen how diamond mines are run? Uniforms without pockets.

The problem is that online tests make it extremely easy to cheat and difficult to catch cheaters. Pen and paper helps with this.

Yes, they should also expel students caught cheating, but they need to catch them first.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/lumpboysupreme Jul 27 '26

That’s a dumb statement anyway, it’s a proven fact that friction and risk to dishonesty reduces it.

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u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jul 27 '26

That saying isn’t really true, though. Thieves will still be thieves, but they are also opportunists. If something is too much work to steal, they are far less likely to steal it.

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u/aj_thenoob2 Jul 27 '26

But that's exactly what he's saying. The availability of AI creates more cheaters.

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u/sofie307 Sep 05 '26

Except you can also create a curated online environment for students to take the test on. Had one professor who did that with only certain materials (webpages) not blocked and basically open book/notes. Some idiot still tried to cheat on his phone, but my professor simply took it from him until the end.

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u/Reaxonab1e Jul 27 '26

Properly invigilated remote tests are possible and they are successfully done. Many students fail in them because they're hard to cheat in.

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u/talldata Jul 27 '26

Those remote tests are never properly invigilated, you have to first install literal malware on your machine, have to stare at the screen constantly (can only stare into empty space) then have an area totally clear of anything, which is neigh impossible in a single room apartment, and if someone knocks on your door or a pet walks behind you, they will automatically fill your exam for "breaking the rules". The invigilators are there actively to screw you over, not to actually supervise.

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u/good_morning_magpie Jul 27 '26

Yep, I went back for my masters during Covid in my mid 30s and had the issue with my two large dogs. Either they’d walk into frame and flag the computer to have a proctor pop in and scold me, or they’d start barking at something and again, a stern talking to by someone several thousand miles away that’s apparently never had a dog.

Oh, and I had to buy the cheapest piece of crap laptop for the exams too, because all my actual personal machines run Linux and apparently they just can’t comprehend anything other than Windows or iOS exists. (VMs don’t work). So stupid.

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u/coldblade2000 Jul 27 '26

Or just have a testing center. The computers are already locked down, they're not yours so no privacy concerns, and you can put cameras pretty much everywhere. Check items coming into the room and do random checks.

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u/faetpls Jul 27 '26

Remote tests at the students house with their technology cannot be trusted.

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u/code_archeologist Jul 27 '26

You are treating the symptom, not curing the disease.

The disease is a lack of ethics and part of these student's education (whether they know it or not) is learning some basic ethics for when they get into the business world.

Making it more difficult to cheat does not produce ethical and honest graduates, it produces graduates who learn how best to cheat and that failure is getting caught.

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u/penisandorvagina Jul 27 '26

Well then if the kids have to put in effort to cheat then at least they'll have to still learn something. GenAI bypasses the learning stage completely.

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u/code_archeologist Jul 27 '26

Unethical students who graduate, make for unethical people at businesses that will see no problem in stealing from you, that will see fines for selling you poison food or dangerous products as "the cost of doing business".

And while that already exists now, imagine how much worse it would be if everybody from the top to the bottom has the same loose ethical framework as the psychopaths running the corporations?

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u/Mutex70 Jul 27 '26

So what is the cure for the disease? We aren't going to suddenly modify society to have parents create better behaved more ethical students.

IMO, the best place we currently have to address this problem (and I do agree a decline in ethical behavior is a problem) is in the classroom.

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u/code_archeologist Jul 27 '26

Yes it is in the classroom. First by teaching ethical behavior early on, then enforcing strict ethics codes (including expulsion for cheating), and creating a culture where students view cheating as an attack on their own academic accomplishments instead of a personal choice of the cheater.

This is how the school I graduated operated (back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), and I am the better for it.