Students are cheating more and more with AI. To stem the phenomenon, universities have implemented a solution so obvious that one wonders why no one thought of it before.
In the 1980 film The Underachievers, the most iconic scene is undoubtedly the one where the different characters take their baccalaureate exams. To get it, they cheat with improbable methods: a suitcase that is actually a video projector, a history book cut into the shape of a shoe sole and glued to the bottom of the foot... It took a lot of imagination back then. Today, all you have to do is open ChatGPT and write “do this homework for me“.
Last year, a survey revealed a staggering figure: 99% of students use generative AI like ChatGPT, a third of them daily. Using such tools is not a bad thing in itself. As Princeton University professor Arthur Spirlin reminds the Wall Street Journal, “[students] will use ChatGPT all the time for all sorts of things, making them more efficient, more productive, and better able to do their jobs.” The problem is when they use it to cheat during their studies.
To combat cheating using AI, these universities are adopting a solution that is as simple as it is effective
The phenomenon is growing. In some American universities, professors have even given up assigning homework, knowing full well that AI will do most of the work. “It's like going to the gym and asking robots to lift weights for you,” explains Stan Oklobdzija of Tulane University.
The solution to the problem wasn't difficult to find. No need to develop a sophisticated tool to counter ChatGPT; it's been around for decades: the notebook. More specifically, the “blue notebook,” long used in the United States for exams. After a drop in sales during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, their business is booming. Up to 80% increase over the last two years for some resellers.
Now, many teachers require students to write in these notebooks during classroom exams, instead of typing them on a computer as is the norm. Effective against cheating, but not without flaws. Students are no longer used to using a pen, which is reflected in their handwriting, which is sometimes bordering on indecipherable.
Faced with this concern, one teacher wanted to let the students type their answers on a PC, asking them to play along and not cheat with the AI. It wasn't long before an assistant caught one of them using ChatGPT. The blue notebooks quickly returned to the tables and seem set to stay there.
0 Comments