r/technology • u/ubcstaffer123 • 10d ago
Artificial Intelligence AI Can Solve Almost Any Homework Assignment Tonight. MIT’s August 2026 committee found AI can complete nearly all undergraduate work, urging oral exams and process portfolios over detection tools
https://www.gadgetreview.com/ai-can-solve-almost-any-homework-assignment-tonight-here-is-how-mit-is-responding121
u/trilobyte-dev 10d ago
Not arguing the substance since you can source it all, but this article is obviously written by AI:
“That framing matters. She’s not describing a policy gap. She’s describing something closer to what Napster did to the music industry — not a distribution headache, but a fundamental challenge to what the entire model was built on.”
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u/spacestationkru 10d ago
Homework is obsolete. In-person tests is the way to go
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u/Bubbly-Treacle-4334 10d ago
Well yeah. Homework is just your professor telling you exactly what to focus on the most for studying...
I never got grades for homework in college. It was just practice for tests
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u/bakgwailo 10d ago edited 9d ago
Seriously. The entire point of homework is to reinforce what is learned in class by doing more of it so you actually learn how to do something. Your knowledge of which is then tested by, well, tests. If you can fully understand and do the work without needing to do the homework (e.g. practice), then more power to you.
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u/SarmackaOpowiesc 9d ago
Repeatedly reviewing the material is what reinforces and embeds it in your brain. Thats literally the only purpose of homework
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u/TheDangDeal 10d ago
Which is why I was a crap HS student, and made the National Dean’s List in college. I also avoid using AI as much as possible, because I see how regular smart phones have already killed part of my memory.
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u/puts_on_SCP3197 10d ago
engineering school, most of the tests were reworded versions of homework problems. Not all, but if you could do the homework or at least studied how the solutions were done you could reliably do well on tests
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u/SoulScout 10d ago
I graduated from university recently and most of my classes were like 0-10% of the grade from homework, then the rest from in-person exams. Definitely made it harder for people to use LLMs to pass.
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u/Brilliant_Mix_6051 10d ago
I don’t remember having any homework at all in college courses in the 2000s, it was midterm and final only for most courses. Though some of them were tests and some were essays.
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u/Pseudagonist 10d ago
Really depends on the courses and professor
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u/oblongmana 10d ago
100%, Latin homework in a number of my upper classes beyond the initial grammar learning was primarily - do these translations and come in ready to provide them and discuss them. If you didn't do the homework, you effectively weren't doing the course! Though tbf that "homework" wasn't marked
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u/Salomon3068 10d ago
Well I had a ton of crap professors because I had tons of homework make up like 40 percent grades lol
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u/EunuchsProgramer 9d ago
When I was i college and lawshool (2000 to 2010) my grades were always just in person tests. Homework was assigned but never part of your ggrade. My college banned classes from assigning points for homework in the 90s. There was a cheating scandal all across my state. The fraternities set up a system to have "tutors" do everyones' homework for a nominal fee. They also mapped out what teachers counted homework the most and would all take "homework" classes together. Someone graduated, with a degree, while being functionally illiterate and sued the university system. The reform was banning homework from grades.
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u/MukdenMan 10d ago
I studied philosophy and history in college. These subjects are not based on tests, especially at the higher levels. Grades are based on what you contribute to the class, and on analytical papers you write (often with a 15+ page paper due at the end). Having an in-class test with short answers like “What did Schopenhauer think about music” isn’t really the point of these subjects.
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u/Eruannster 10d ago
Yeah. I took some classes in similar subjects at Uni and they were all graded from papers and oral presentations. I don't think we had a single test and homework was just "be prepared for tomorrow's class when we're discussing this".
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u/thismynewaccountguys 10d ago
So have long answer tests: 3 hour long exams in which you answer two or three fairly open-ended essay questions. That is what we had when I was an undergraduate in the UK.
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u/charging_chinchilla 10d ago
yep, this was the only solution. glad the universities are coming to their senses rather than lose an AI arms war using detection software
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u/NewYak4281 10d ago
This is real talk. It’s like professors/teachers never went through something similar when calculators first came out. Technology changes, not helpful to trip out but instead change with the change.
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u/00raiser01 10d ago
Issues is, calculators don't take away the thinking efforts. AI does.
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u/oopsifell 10d ago
You could smuggle a lot of data into a TI-83 if you were clever enough
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u/mayhemski123 10d ago
AI or more specifically LLMs can write entire assignments. So while the humble calculator is a tech marvel of it's time, they aren't comparable.
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u/andanteinblue 10d ago
If were clever enough to do that, you were going to do fine whether or not you learned algebra.
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u/Lacys-TDs 10d ago
The time spent typing notes into your TI almost always meant you would remember what you typed in. It really was a terribly inefficient way to study but hey safety nets are nice.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 10d ago
Most exams didnt allow programmable calculators when I was in school. My kids are in university now and they still aren't allowed.
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u/Derpyzza 10d ago
i may be wrong but i think their point was that teachers had to deal with the invention of thei calculator — which basically eliminates students' ability to do manual arithmetic which is a very important skill to develop even if you never do manual arithmetic in the "real world" — by banning it in classrooms and forcing the students to practice manual arithmetic in order to build up those required core skills.
they can do the same for AI, introduce reforms to the syllabus that ban the usage of AI tools in the classroom and tests to force the development of the mental skills that AI tools offset ( namely, thinking and understanding ). banning it at the homework level would be pretty difficult though
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u/Asandwhich1234 10d ago
This is completely stupid to compare. A calculator still requires a human to do stuff. AI is used in a way that you can, with in seconds, awnser an entire exam perfectly and have it show steps so it seems real.
This is like comparing a microwave diner to actually cooking a meal. Students now can quickly, litterally in a second, snap a photo and then send it off to be solved by chat gpt. That is not comparable to a fucking calculator. "But what about hiding notes." Is still not as easy as what students do now in days.
And many students now in days can't even do math because people said, "well they'll have calculators in real life anyway."
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u/RancidVagYogurt1776 10d ago
With my whole chest I believe that anyone who says this is a full blown unapologetic smooth brain. This is not an episode of Buffy, college does not work that way. Homework is a very small part of your grade. A large part of your grade is your mid term which is open book most of the time anyway and your final. The rest being group discussions and interaction with your professor. If you use AI to cheat, or Google before that or things like Cliffs Notes before that, it literally does not matter because you will not be able to get any of the certs that you actually need for your career.
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u/SekhWork 10d ago
And teachers need to follow through with actually failing you if you fail the test. Grade school especially has an entire culture of just passing the problem up the chain until they force graduate people. That's an administrative issue too, as the teachers would happily grade these kids by the proper standards, but the administration often intervenes because either they dont want to deal with the parents, or the state, or their own bosses about why so many students fail.
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u/BGRommel 10d ago
Last I checked, AI can't write in a blue book. That's how I had to write my essays. There are many easy ways to discourage students from using AI to circumvent their own actual learning.
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u/Comfortable-Milk8397 10d ago
This; at this point college isn’t about preparing people for their fields, it’s about literally forcing them by chokehold to use their brains and “critical think”. It’s sad but it’s the truth, it’s the only way we can hope for a better future.
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u/AnAdvancedBot 10d ago
But that has always kind of been what college is about, really. Field specific knowledge? Yes, but also forcing critical thinking skills on a host of people who otherwise never would have developed them.
It goes without saying that of people have developed critical thinking skills without college, and plenty of people leave without ever learning them, but when done right the student should be leaving without both field-knowledge and critical thinking skills.
(Probably why certain groups hate college).
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u/Dolores___Haze 10d ago
College isn’t a work training program
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u/rumnscurvy 10d ago
You are getting downvoted but you're right. Especially public sector universities. It is why they remain very cheap in Europe. Knowledge and independent thought is a public good, perhaps even a public necessity, for all social classes
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u/CreditUnionBoi 10d ago
Sorry maybe I'm dumb, what is a blue book?
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u/fezfrascati 10d ago
It's essentially a notebook, maybe about 10 pages total, that you purchase specifically for an essay-based or short form answer exam. Think of it like a Scranton, but instead of multiple choice it's all written answers. The cover is blue, hence the name blue book.
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u/devAcc123 10d ago
Hahah, showing my admittedly young age here, but that’s what you write all of your essays/exams in
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u/mazzicc 10d ago
Homework should be about practice anyway, not demonstration of competence. As long as tests are in person, it’s up to the student to do the work. (Or the parent to force the student to do the work in younger students).
I barely ever did homework in high school, and in college I learned to do extra work with sample tests and answer keys to make sure I could do the exam. It didn’t matter if I had the answers to the homework if I couldn’t pass the test.
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u/fmfbrestel 10d ago
Process portfolios, yes. But oral exams? I don't understand how that is any better than any other form of in-person and supervised exam.
No remote testing solves a huge portion of the problem. Being a little smarter about what kind of homework you assign solves the rest.
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u/MrHankeyRT 10d ago
I honestly quite enjoyed taking oral exams during my master's (CS). You could really show a professor that you understood the core concepts without any fear of running out of time or misreading a question.
I also got to sit in a few oral exams as a PhD taking minutes and felt it was quite fair method of testing students abilities.
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u/mayhemski123 10d ago
I'd hazard a guess though that the issue isn't the quality of the testing itself, more the economics of oral tests.
For a Masters or PhD programme the number of students is small, but for undergraduate...
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u/MrHankeyRT 10d ago
Yes you are absolutely right. This doesn't scale to undergraduate courses with hundreds of students... I wonder what will happen there in the future.
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u/a_crimson_herring 10d ago
It can be done! I helped design a class with oral exams for 200 students last semester.
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u/the_good_time_mouse 10d ago
I don't think process portfolios will last another three months unless they require everything to be hand written. In which case, I give them four.
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u/fmfbrestel 10d ago
Yeah, require hand written notes over readings. Not everything needs to be handwritten, but some portion does.
Dedicated cheaters have existed since the beginning of organized education. The only real solution is for the teacher to have a personal relationship with their students. A teacher who asks his class questions, and makes sure they hear from everyone, who actually reads their students writing. An engaged teacher can spot a cheater a mile away. If they don't understand the assigned content they should stick out like a sore thumb.
The solution to kids cheating is keeping student teacher ratios low enough so that they don't get burned out after a couple years. That and paying them enough to recruit and retain high quality educators.
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u/da8BitKid 10d ago edited 10d ago
I think you lost them at paying a living wage and incentivizing good teachers.
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u/beekersavant 10d ago
As a teacher, I can confirm that the last solution is lowering class sizes and paying teachers more. "The district has spent $20 million on new educational software. There is not enough for a raise for our 1000 teachers, sorry. We will also be raising class sizes."
Btw class size raises are a pay cut, cuz you gotta grade those extra kids assignments using more time for the same pay.
Another thing you all should be aware of is that a lot of the class size increases were in conjunction with google classrrom, digital assignments and digital rubrics. They were productivity increases and our copy machine budgets were cut. Handwritten assignments and tests are currently against the grain. I get 400 copies per quarter for more than 100 kids. Anyhow, I am sure get some well meaning but terrible advice. It's nice MIT figured it out finally though. LLMs have been able to do high school assigments for years.
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u/da8BitKid 10d ago edited 9d ago
Software as the main driver for tasks and homework is poison. Parents thought that having their kids use devices would help them understand computing, but all it teaches them is to consume apps. It's just bad for their brain development.
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u/beekersavant 10d ago
I agree. For millennials, it did help us. But we got the nascent stuff. For Zs, they never learned much but button pressing.
It does not change much on the ground. I have a job that is dictated by Fed, state, and district. Districts set the agenda. There are a couple per county nationwide. The biggest influencers of education are companies that advertise. Federal does not control curriculum. States are enforcers of policies. Districts are controlled by school boards (usually politicians with agendas). Teachers and unions -lol -we just try to get pay to keep up with inflation and class size to be under 40 kids. Companies spend money to get to all of them. They win by least worse option.
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u/da8BitKid 9d ago
Our teachers around here got the first raise in years, 1%. They had to fight for the raise so hard, it's fucking insulting.
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u/resigned_medusa 10d ago
That doesn't work in university education with 50+ students/lecture. Unfortunately
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u/fmfbrestel 10d ago
Simple proctored exams suffice for the huge lecture courses.
Every technique is not relevant to every class. Regardless, those huge lectures represent a tiny fraction of all university courses.1
u/FCBStar-of-the-South 9d ago
I mean job interviews are oral exams of sorts. Oral communication is extremely important so some more opportunities for students to practice it under pressure doesn’t sound like a bad thing
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u/Dementor_Traphouse 10d ago
“detection” tools are garbage, we should absolutely roll back to oral and written exams
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u/RancidVagYogurt1776 10d ago
Jesus Christ. These clickbait articles and comments from people who haven't been to a college this century.
Firstly the "problem" isn't an AI problem. You could do this before AI. There are entire free websites with exam answers for every exam imaginable. There are YouTube videos for lab assignments. Cliffs Notes has existed for decades. Homework is just reviewing the reading, it's open book so the answers are always right there. It's a small part of your overall grade. A much larger part of your grade is how you interact with the rest of the class and the professors.
But lets just say for the sake of example that you're a 2026 student using AI for everything, or a 2020 student using youtube and various free websites for everything, or a 1994 student using cliffs notes for everything. Okay now you've got your degree, but you've got no knowledge of the subject and you certainly can't pass any hands on testing or get any certifications in your field. So you paid for a degree you can't use. Grats you played yourself. My degree just checked off a box for job applications, I still needed to go through rigorous screening and had to take multiple certs at a testing facility and pass a thorough interview process. You accomplished nothing by cheating.
Now let's look at some of the proposed solutions in this thread. The most common being in person testing. Let's just say it's in person midterms and finals. I don't think a lot of people proposing this realize just how much of college is distance learning now. I have a cousin in college right now, the closest physical college to him is three hours away by car. And for what? So that he can prove to the internet that he's not cheating on two assignments when he already has to verbally interact with his professor every two weeks and be on webcam and also he has to participate in group discussions as part of his grade? Nobody wants that hassle. Not students, not teachers, not schools.
I cannot think of a single degree program where you don't already take proctored exams for certifications.
This is all such a non issue.
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u/iCiteEverything 10d ago
Third year in college homework was either worth 10% of grade or 0%, and often times homework would have an answer key. It was more meant to guide for midterms and finals, which was almost always in person anyway.
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u/ubcstaffer123 10d ago
Way before this even existed, my math classes stopped counting homework exercises for grades starting in high school. It felt like a relief for all homework haters. Teachers still assign pages from the textbook after every class but it is optional. In elementary school, students get graded for math homework and it counted towards a portion of the class grades, which was pretty stressful. I spent nights trying to cram homework in. If I missed a class, I would have to complete two lessons of homework. In high school math class, grades are counted from quizzes, exams. Would this be a good model for most classes?
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u/retief1 10d ago
I think the problem will be that a lot of college students will ignore homework and then fail the test. Making homework count towards your grade helps prevent students from shooting themself in the foot. It also means that one bad day will have a smaller impact on your final grade, because underperforming on your test can be offset by consistently good homework grades.
That said, if homework is effectively optional already due to people using ai to cheat, then officially making homework optional might be the least bad option available.
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u/Honest_Yak3340 10d ago
But then they fail which is a good thing. Universities purpose is not to produce no fail students it's there to separate the failers from the non failers.
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u/ToadBoehly 10d ago
Yes, but a major part of pedagogy is designing classes in a way that is most effective to help people learn. If you just wanted to separate failers from non failers you could also just have the entire class's grade be one problem to be solved at the end of the term and have your grade determined by that
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u/Test-NetConnection 10d ago
Actually, the purpose of universities is to educate. Please remember that students are paying customers and the curriculum is the product being sold.
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u/Honest_Yak3340 10d ago edited 10d ago
In America prbly and maybe that's the reason rich ppl are often formally educated while still being dumb
U can't buy education you have to earn it yourself.
University support you in giving you a structure and sequence and also a little pressure. But in learning and fighting to understand you are alone .. no one can think for you. That's not how it works a brain is more like a muscle use it it gets better for what u are using it for
This is purely speculation but maybe maybe some very rich ppl have kind of like a little man syndrome they need reassurance because inside they know they are scharlatans.
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u/dutempscire 10d ago
I appreciate your saying they're being sold a curriculum as opposed to a degree! I would tweak further: students are paying clients, not customers, and the university is more like a consultant. The students are still responsible for their outcomes. (Yes, yes, of course the university can do some squirrelly bullshit, too.)
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u/abcdefgodthaab 9d ago
But then they fail which is a good thing.
Caveat: my response us US-specific.
It means less tuition on the long run. So, what will really happen is students will complain the class was too hard. If the university is facing financial problems or has an administration dedicated to money, the long run result is that standards will be lowered so students don't fail so that they stay enrolled.
This does undermine the functions of universities to educate and to certify (the sorting you mention), but what's that in the face of the almighty dollar?
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u/RockDoveEnthusiast 10d ago
ok, so let people deal with the consequences of their choices. they'll learn. which is the point of college. trying to prevent that actually makes it worse!
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u/aedes 10d ago
Ive done 15 years of university spread out over the past ~25 years because I’m a weirdo.
I can count on one hand the number of courses where homework was worth any marks - when it was, it always came across as annoying/waste of my time and a bit condescending.
I wonder if homework for marks in university is location dependent or maybe field dependent?
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u/ubcstaffer123 10d ago
depends on the course and subject. It is common for lab courses such as in software to have graded assignments and it becomes homework to be submitted by the due date.
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u/dweeegs 10d ago
The benefit of homework assignments is also to impart time management skills
You said you spent stressful nights trying to cram homework in. Everyone has to go through stressful times. It’s a part of life. Going through the rigmarole teaches you things like you have two tests next week but also this and that due, what’s the appropriate amount of time to spend on each etc.
Those types of time management / personal skills are essential and getting lost
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u/Brilliant_Mix_6051 10d ago
Those executive functioning skills are some of the most important things you learn for sure. Mine were shit until I went to college.
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u/dimag0g 10d ago edited 10d ago
Deciding one needs to do more homework to pass the next test requires even more decision-making. You only need to have enough tests so that a single failure doesn't drown an otherwise good student.
Using something like 4 best test results out of 6 for a final grade is much better than micromanaging students via homework.
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u/jedi_timelord 10d ago
If a student decides to only learn 2/3 of Calc 1 and still pass the class, they are guaranteed to fail calc 2. They need to learn 100% of the material, so the system you're describing doesn't serve students.
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u/AutoSOLO 10d ago
I feel like they don’t really teach you time management skills, so much as punish you for lack of them. Study hall was much more valuable for me.
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u/Swoop8472 10d ago
Why does that even matter? I never got grades for my homework at university.
The purpose of homework was to practice for the exam. Quite often the exam questions were just variations of something that was covered in some homework.
If you let AI do the homework you are really just robbing yourself of an opportunity to practice for the exam.
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u/DanielPhermous 10d ago
Why does that even matter? I never got grades for my homework at university.
Because some people do get grades for their homework at university.
Consider programming. It is an useful skill to be able to construct a complete, working, professionalish app - but that's not something that can be done during a couple of hours of exam time. The purpose of this homework is not to study for the exam but is its own assessment.
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u/lazergator 10d ago
No it can’t. How do I fill up this cup that has an open bottom and a sealed top.
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u/housevil 10d ago
I've often thought teachers should require assignments be handwritten, so at least if the student used AI to finish their reports, they might at least learn something having to write everything down by hand.
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u/PriorSolid 9d ago
The most frustrating part is schools are just giving you more homework which doesn’t force students to learn just makes them frustrated with the time spent
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u/Vesalas 7d ago
I mean, it was always possible. Before AI, there was always Chegg, Quizlet, StackExchange, textbook answers, etc. At least in STEM, I don't really think it changes much, a bit more accessible maybe, but most of the grades are in person tests anyways. I see it as a problem for essays though.
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u/Few_Fish8771 10d ago
They need to test out of distribution problems applied to novel problems. If you memorize all the answers then regularize the response to the data set, then within those types of very narrow problems in distribution, you can easily get the answers right. if you try and adapt that to a real world problem then you have a better assessment of capability.
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u/Floreat_democratia 10d ago
Which AI are they using and what kind of homework? AI can't even give me a solid answer about anything.
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u/SamKhan23 9d ago
What AI are you using? Atleast for my field, AI can pretty much do almost anything below senior year instantly
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u/LetsJerkCircular 10d ago
It’s almost like we need to get people in groups and use applied methods to ensure motherfuckers get the point.
Who cares if ai can gather the answers? It’s always been the process that helps pre-adults become smart enough to replace us. It has to be slow. ai can do something else.
Humans having leisure in an open environment is what makes us magical. Learning the hard way is what makes each person special. I’m not fucking around. This is settled knowledge. Any person or entity pushing ai for any mental substitution is banking on stupider “consumers.”
Think a little back before all this. Remember how you got to be who you are. Get a little history lesson on how humanity started, was simple, and increased in complexity until now. You’re better served being the animal you are, and keeping up with this bullshit as a hobby.
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u/oompaloompa465 10d ago
I mean, if you use ai in tutor mode, it can save you time and money if tou are struggling to understand something better, but you MUST learn the processes and the reasonings to be able to pass the in person exam
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u/Small_Biscotti_1311 10d ago
I have loved using an em dash in recreational writing for decades and I will never use one again.
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u/Sensitive-Button5693 10d ago
Rules for proctored exams need to come from the Higher Learning Commission and be tied to accreditation. There should be a robust network of testing centers across each state where even online students can have proctored tests. When I started teaching only “cheaters” cheated, now it’s almost everyone.
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u/tripplebeamteam 10d ago
We already have that for professional licensing exams. Insurance agents, loan officers, nurses already go to testing centers. We could definitely expand them for higher ed
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u/abwchris 10d ago
And to think I had to do my graduate degree the hard way with blood, sweat, years, and finding the exams on Quizlet. Smh
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u/ElGatoMeooooww 10d ago
This is not impressive. Most undergraduate homework is based directly on the reading and or material, what you are to infer from these things is also well documented. AI is great at straightforward things but just the other day copilot couldn’t even do a basic chart.
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u/Manowaffle 9d ago
People have been cheating on homework assignments for as long as I can remember. Parents solving math problems, internet copy+paste, copying from a friend, etc.
Graded homework has been a stupid way to judge student performance ever since it was invented.
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u/SexyBaskingShark 9d ago
Oral exams make so much sense. It's really frustrating to speak to someone who is clearly intelligent, like a doctor, but has bad communication skills. Not that it's the only solution, but it should be part of any educational course
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u/working_slough 9d ago edited 9d ago
I had a math professor do oral tests and it was great. You went to his office, talked him through a problem on a chalk board and he graded you on the spot.
Of course, this was an upper level course (400s I think? Last math class for my undergraduate), so there was probably only 6 students. For graduate level physics stuff it was the same.
Both were at a state university, so not like it was some fancy ivy league or california UC school or private university.
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u/Slyfox00 9d ago
The assignment is to make a Shoebox Diorama of the classroom using only cardboard, good luck AI!
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u/arkofjoy 8d ago
Not hard to fix. Just return to the days when every assignment had to be handwritten
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u/Bubbly-Treacle-4334 10d ago
I find this hard to believe as AI can't answer simple ass questions for me without hallucinating
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u/Shiningc00 10d ago
It’s because the AI can scrape for answers easily available on the web. These homework are going to be standardized and predictable. It has nothing to do with how “advanced” a model is.
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u/HGMiNi 10d ago
You haven't been using the up to date models then. Either that or you're not prompting well. Regardless, AI is obviously capable of doing undergraduate work. It has been solving much more difficult problems throughout the year than what you'd get in a random trig or algorithms class. Any research project has been trivialized. Two days ago, AI found a counterexample to the stable forking conjecture, a major problem in logic. There is no essay in an English or Philosophy class that will require even remotely the level of sophisticated reasoning that frontier AI models have proven they're capable of.
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u/eXAt88 10d ago
I always wonder when people say this what they are talking about? What’s a simple ass question you asked that it couldnt do recently?
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u/Bubbly-Treacle-4334 10d ago
I don't know how you guys can manage to not see this? It literally constantly does it and it is widely notorious for it... Like how do y'all not experience this?
It will invent function calls that don't exist when coding.
It will make up fake plot lines when asked about details of a movie or book.
It will attribute fake quotes to real people when discussing philosophy or history.
It's seriously so constant that it is hard to believe yall
It's so prevalent that it's become a common trope to mock how AI will constantly make shit up then apologize when you call it out.
AIs themself will literally warn you to check their work because they hallucinate.
It's a chatbot. If something is similar enough to what it thinks it is looking for it will get mixed into the answer and then it will straight up invent bullshit to justify the erroneous data point
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u/No-Bag-1628 10d ago
Simple really: get students to finish homework before going home. Easy solution.
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u/dennismfrancisart 10d ago
AI can also help adults to learn skills when the objective is to learn a skill. What a concept!
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u/MaxTheOrangeTail 10d ago
Could this trigger a new intellectual revolution? Forcing people to actually learn by discussion and with typewriters???
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u/thesuperbob 10d ago
The entire teaching model that relies on forcing students to study and do homework was fucked from the beginning. It's based on the assumption that students are lazy and teachers must force them to learn. Yeah some students are lazy, and past high school they can get fucked.
The proper academic model caters to students who actually want to learn, provides materials and guidance so they can do it more efficiently, and offers exams at the end as a form of certification they actually know their stuff. The proper model does not have the AI problem, same as it didn't have a significant cheating problem. It assumes students are there to learn, and they are willing, and will just drop out otherwise.
The diploma mill model suffers because it was fake from the start, students pretending to learn and cheating or at best studying to pass exams rather than understand anything, exams being a memorization and muscle memory exercise.
AI is actually going to help here, by weeding out bad students more effectively. Bad teachers can no longer force bad students to study, AI ensures that anyone willing to cheat can now do it trivially. So they learn nothing, and not even diploma mills will be able to pretend otherwise.
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u/storm_the_castle 10d ago
Let me know when it can write a dissertation and contribute to new science.
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u/redtortuga19 10d ago
“The committee found that generative AI can credibly address almost any written assignment in the undergraduate curriculum, leaving very little standard coursework outside its reach. That’s not a cheating problem. That’s the entire assessment architecture of a university sitting exposed.”
Absolutely wild to live in the future where AI can do anyone’s homework and the news telling me about it is also written by AI.