6/28/2026 at 4:41:12 PM
by geox
6/28/2026 at 9:01:30 PM
His research is in Game Theory. He should have realized that, in a situation where all competitors are (possibly) using LLMs, the game theoretic optimal choice is to use LLMs.by cherryteastain
6/28/2026 at 9:38:18 PM
That depends on the reward function. Should society reward credentials or skill?by goldenarm
6/28/2026 at 5:48:48 PM
Damn that's crazy. Guess the take home test is dead now.I never understood this behavior from undergrads though, you're paying so much for an education and then you just skip the education part? Why bother?
by danny_codes
6/28/2026 at 6:11:53 PM
>you're paying so much for an education and then you just skip the education part? Why bother?Because you are viewing the motivation of college wrong for most people. For most people, the purpose of college is to get piece of paper that will open up higher salary opportunities. Ergo, they are just doing whatever required to get said piece of paper with least amount of effort.
Until degrees, in particular, degrees from well-regarded universities stop being that method, this behavior will continue.
by stackskipton
6/28/2026 at 9:28:21 PM
> For most people, the purpose of college is to get piece of paper that will open up higher salary opportunitiesMore true at an Ivy than anywhere else.
> This year, the economist decided that both the midterm and the final exams for his course would be of the take-home, closed-book type (there is a certain tradition of this at Ivy League schools).
If this guy thinks AI is motivating his previously guiless student body to start cheating on these tests, rather than simply changing the way they are cheating, he's been sniffing too many of his own farts.
by ghostly_s
6/28/2026 at 6:51:10 PM
Sadly this is true. Another take is that if you don’t use AI but everybody outperforms you on exams using AI at some point you’re forced into it as well.by onemoresoop
6/28/2026 at 7:08:04 PM
That motivation isn't necessarily inherent in the attendees though. That has been formed by corporations increasingly placing pressure on universities to be their personal training grounds, without any actual investment. Corporations don't want to train anymore. They want universities and other companies to do their training for them.It's why we're seeing the death of the liberal arts majors. It's sad, because usually the smartest and most creative people I've worked with in the field of engineering and software have been liberal arts majors. But corporations don't want intelligent people. They want people who have been molded to whatever the soup du jour is.
by bmitc
6/28/2026 at 7:19:52 PM
> That [motivation] has been formed by corporations increasingly placing pressure on universities to be their personal training grounds, without any actual investment. Corporations don't want to train anymore. They want universities and other companies to do their training for them.I don't think so.
The problem rather is that corporations very often want some very different knowledge of employees than what universities teach to the students.
If what the universities teach was very important for the job, applicants who have not invested serious effort into getting a deep understanding of the topics of the courses would nearly all fail in the job interviews.
The problem rather is that for many jobs the knowledge that you could have gotten from the university typically does not matter, and thus investing minimal effort into the courses does not get you rejected in a job interview.
by aleph_minus_one
6/28/2026 at 9:34:23 PM
If only they could communicate with each other and explain their reasoning.Corporation A "Hi University, here is what we hire highly paid people to do, and what we need to improve as a company."
University B, "Hi Corp A, here is our educational mandate to create well-rounded, highly educated people, we can probably fit your needs into the curriculum in the last couple of semesters, let's work together to make sure you have good employees and we have people who aren't struggling to pay back loans because they have an engineering degree but can't make more than 50K at a dead end job."
by Avicebron
6/28/2026 at 9:00:02 PM
Because for many a college degree is a pure formality to land a job.My first job out of college, I worked with veterans at the company who all got in with a HS diploma. Now you realistically need a masters degree to be competitive, for no other reason than that where I live (Norway) most applicants have a 5-year masters degree. It is basically academic inflation.
The worst part is when you start working, and indeed discover that this is a job you could have done just fine straight out of HS.
by TrackerFF
6/28/2026 at 9:18:36 PM
A master's in CS can teach you interesting and very useful things, like how OS kernels, distributed systems, networks, and microprocessors work. A master's in EE will teach you things like signal processing and analog circuit design as well. Knowing these things helps you to design, build, and evaluate systems that are reliable and efficient.A master's in science helps you understand how the physical world works and how to reason quantitatively as well as qualitatively. A master's in humanities gives you knowledge and understanding of human culture, such as literature and the arts, and history - subjects that can be deeply enriching and can provide insights that transcend disciplines. A master's in social science will teach you about how humans behave in groups and how they interact with their environment, and about statistical analysis.
Writing a master's thesis will also teach you a lot and make you a better writer - if you actually write it yourself and don't rely on AI.
Any of these degrees will certainly qualify you to be a more interesting, knowledgeable, and insightful barista or Uber driver.
by musicale
6/28/2026 at 9:34:03 PM
There should be no reason you have to jump to a master’s for that. A bachelor’s in CS or EE would be a joke if it didn’t (doesn’t) cover those things. Arguably, even the current 4 year bachelor’s is a waste compared to a focused 2 year program: looking at my college’s requirements, many classes are wasted. Business majors taking a physical science with lab component, entry level English classes being taught by a TA that doesn’t speak English natively, etc.by alex43578
6/28/2026 at 9:05:25 PM
Apparently some students aren't actually interested in learning and view the diploma as a meal ticket rather than a meaningful credential.This was never my view, nor was it the view of most of my peers; we were actually interested in learning, and understood that cheating was a method of learning avoidance.
by musicale
6/28/2026 at 9:23:52 PM
When it costs a lot of money, the failure itself costs a lot of money. And you cant afford it. Because failure means you paid a lot of money for nothing.An expensive education comes with higher temptation to cheat.
by watwut
6/28/2026 at 6:10:16 PM
Because it's an important aid to getting to a high-paying job in the US, not just a means to learn.One need only look at the resume filtering process, a once manual bias that has now been codified into algorithmic bias with AI. A degree from a good school boosts your chances immensely, and other facets such as coursework don't matter much.
If you have ever seen someone filter applicant resumes, you will understand instantly. There are too many, you have to filter them somehow and the allure is irresistible.
by thereitgoes456
6/28/2026 at 6:36:04 PM
They’ve been taught that not having the piece of paper will keep them from having even a menial job,so you have a huge population of people bullshitting their way through to the piece of paper.
by DANmode
6/28/2026 at 6:50:22 PM
When you're a student in a competitive program at a top university, graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little choice but to do the same. Especially when jobs for new grads are harder to come by and there's more pressure to also go above and beyond with internships and side projects during your time in school. There's no way to compete without cheating.by pants2
6/28/2026 at 7:18:15 PM
After retiring at 65 from a university teaching and research science career (all pre-AI), I went back to teaching, but this time teaching high school science, mostly AP STEM courses at an A-ranked public high school. The cheating/AI problem is now a crisis greater than COVID. My experience: very few students in advanced and AP classes do not cheat — largely for the reasons given above — and it takes enormous resourcefulness on the teacher's part to design coursework and examinations in which cheating through AI is not an issue. Many teachers I know have all but given up — the cost and effort required to circumvent cheating are simply too great given the already sky-high demands on teachers' time and energy. And school administrations are little help, due to thoughtless and enthusiastic reliance on software at every level. In some ways they are part of the problem. I don't know what the situation is in schools outside the US. But here it had become an arms race.[Edit: typos]
by rsa4046
6/28/2026 at 7:39:42 PM
Personally I believe AI has made exams and high stakes testing unworkable. Even before AI I would argue teaching to the test made high stakes testing unworkable. How grades are assigned IMO will be more like how employees are evaluated in the workplace: some metrics, some oral exams, some peer feedback, but mostly on what they produced.by rawgabbit
6/28/2026 at 8:20:33 PM
Yes, oral exams, content created in plain sight, project-based activities, all of these can provide a true appraisal of student understanding. But these approaches, although highly rewarding for both student and teacher, are extremely time-consuming. They also run counter to the priorities of the district, which are forever and always: student achievement on standardized tests accomplished with minimal teaching personnel. The only ones benefiting here are the corporations providing and grading the tests. To a large extent it is a sham. More importantly, IRL science is not a multiple choice test. As you state above, whether you work in industry or academia, your value is what you can produce (usually by plain hard work), what problems you can solve, your imagination, creativity, what you can create yourself or with a group. But from what I've seen thus far: AI has little place in education.by rsa4046
6/28/2026 at 6:55:09 PM
> you have little choiceI personally disagree with that very hard. Deontology begins at home.
by mariusor
6/28/2026 at 8:29:57 PM
Yep. You always have a choice. If cheating is wrong, it does not become acceptable just because everyone else is doing it.by bigstrat2003
6/28/2026 at 9:33:45 PM
Agreed, but it feels like a Pyrrhic victory to not cheat, then get lower scores than the cheaters.by gedy
6/28/2026 at 7:54:36 PM
The Lance Armstrong defenseby danjl
6/28/2026 at 9:26:58 PM
In his generation, only cheating cyclists could stay in teams. He was the one who created the situation, but in fact, cyclists had two choices - stop being cyclist or cheat.by watwut
6/28/2026 at 7:35:04 PM
These articles consistently fail to acknowledge students were cheating in large numbers prior to these AI tools being available.It was certainly not difficult to cheat at a "closed book" take home exam before.
by nitwit005
6/28/2026 at 7:27:43 PM
Administration needs to eschew "technology" and demand analog solutions: hand written exams in proctored rooms, no devices out in the classroom, no take home work, etc.by throwawaypath
6/28/2026 at 9:16:13 PM
Ensuring integrity definitely requires in person proctored exam centers. It does not require hand written exams.Hand written exams are either very labor intensive to grade or are confined to multiple choice, so either inflationary to cost of education or inauthentic / inaccurate representation of most knowledge and skills.
The best answer, which enables authentic meaningful high integrity assessment that is also unit cost efficient is to have testing center facilities with institution supplied devices and well trained proctors.
This way instructors can assess students in ways that are relevant and authentic to the subject matter while ensuring the assessments are accurate, consistent, fair and actually reflect the students abilities.
by FloorEgg
6/28/2026 at 7:42:08 PM
> This year, the economist decided that both the midterm and the final exams for his course would be of the take-home, closed-book type (there is a certain tradition of this at Ivy League schools).These news articles are just tiresome at this point. Obviously folks cheated previously, obviously it's easier now, obviously the answer has been to not have take homes all along.
by djoldman
6/28/2026 at 7:02:03 PM
The problem isn't AI, it's that you gave a take-home exam expected no one to cheat.by michaelfm1211
6/28/2026 at 7:59:10 PM
As of now chatgpt subsidies its consumer subscription-I wonder if cheating on exams will be still promiment once students are forced to pay $30 a monthSince students are notorious for being cheap
by JimsonYang
6/28/2026 at 8:17:41 PM
$30/month is likely a rounding error in the budget of students at the schools mentioned in the article.by jfim
6/28/2026 at 8:19:08 PM
YesStill cheaper then being jobless or without the bachelor
by Bombthecat
6/28/2026 at 5:20:19 PM
the professor has all the power in the classroom. If you don't want cheating, define better conditions for the exam. You allowed a take-home exam which means students are able to use any and all resources.by fhn
6/28/2026 at 6:33:40 PM
> You allowed a take-home exam which means students are able to use any and all resources.It was a closed-book exam. The professor shouldn’t have to hold students’ hands for them to act with integrity, they are all adults.
In this particular class, the professor made the final exam in-person, and didn’t count the take-home midterm because the score distribution wasn’t consistent between the two exams. I think that’s a reasonable approach, but it’s kind of sad that it was necessary
by rsfern
6/28/2026 at 7:46:41 PM
When the highest offices of the land are packed to the gills with liars and grifters and anyone with a brain can observe there’s no downside to such behavior, "just be honest" rings rather hollowby revolvingthrow
6/28/2026 at 8:09:12 PM
Maybe I have too optimistic a mindset, but “just be honest” in academia isn’t about being a rule-follower, it’s about not short-changing yourself by coasting though on autopilot instead of learning to think and solve problems for yourself.Whether that really matters if your goal is to climb the social ladder and have power and influence, I don’t know.
by rsfern
6/28/2026 at 8:33:15 PM
Not really. I'm not responsible for how others behave; I'm responsible for how I behave. I don't like the rampant immoral behavior in society any more than you, but I still hold myself to a higher standard of behavior and others should too.by bigstrat2003
6/28/2026 at 6:24:33 PM
The thought of a closed book take home exam really made me laugh. They also mentioned Princeton hasn’t had professors in the room for exams since the 1890s… They just have a code of honor and rely on other students to report cheaters??Ivy league is such a scam, in so many different ways.
by carljungslabtek
6/28/2026 at 5:21:32 PM
They're going to have change everything so use of an AI assistant doesn't matter because once they graduate they're just going to continue using it anyway.If it's a math for finance course then some kind of model building for the midterm and being marked on the quality of the model or something. If AI becomes so good that it always chooses the best fitting model and requires no numerical optimization then they will have to change the courses to be more like UChicago where it's primarily undergrad directed research but AI assisted.
by hackermailman
6/28/2026 at 5:46:20 PM
Why teach kids how to read, they can just take a picture of whatever text they want and have AI say it aloud.by danny_codes
6/28/2026 at 5:27:15 PM
The challenge I think is that students then struggle because they used AI throughout the semester and didn't actually learn. The proper response would be to be strict and fail students that don't perform to a satisfactory level, but this messes with the funding incentives.You can only lead a horse to water, you can't make it drink. Maybe a student's sincerity should play a larger role in the admission process, maybe with a sharp expense curve such that students judged to be more sincere have to pay less tuition. It is an inherently subjective evaluation though.
Edit: I completely misread your comment. Asking students to build a model is not a finance class anymore.
by hgoel
6/28/2026 at 6:00:02 PM
It's a welfare economics theory course that requires many frameworks with measures where you are maximizing some graphical representation. It also requires assumptions to work and can be visualized in a model where you can see what happens when one of the assumptions doesn't hold.For example the old and new Berkeley model to study rent control effect on market prices
by hackermailman
6/28/2026 at 6:22:24 PM
I should've been clearer, I meant AI model. If you're referring to financial models, then yeah, that can be a reasonable direction.by hgoel
6/28/2026 at 5:33:17 PM
This is a dumb take. It's like not teaching kids 1 + 1 because a calculator can do it for them.by orlp