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Comment by sgustard | Hacker News Reader

Why do some countries cheat in the Olympics? Because it is no longer a contest of human achievement, it's just about the medals as a symbol of national glory. Of course: once all countries are doping, the medals will become meaningless. College degrees will suffer the same fate if everyone cheats to get them.

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The problem is there is no reliable way to test for LLM usage unlike for doping. There’s no way to police this problem.

Sure there is - evaluate the candidates actual skill level without the ability to use automated tools.

The current and old school way is a proctored exam.

Testing doesn’t work for everything, especially for dissertations, publications, research etc. That being said I’m wholeheartedly in favor of using extensive in class testing when applicable.

It works for enough that 99% of cheaters are weeded out. Perfection is the enemy of "good enough".

Also, always keep in mind the most underrated kind of cheater: the clearly smart kid who cheats to go from an A- to an A. That level of student can't be "caught" with tests because by all accounts they already know and have even mastered the material. The pressure at that level of competitiveness simply requires zero room for doubt. Not really what the article is about, but some food for thought.

Diversity in evaluation methodology is a reliable way for many subject. Even short, minimal handwritten exams would help to assess student understanding at a few key checkpoints and should should be reintroduced.

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