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Comment by tarkin2 | Hacker News Reader

The easiest path is to allow students to cheat on homework and watch them fail in the non-coursework-based exam. Your classes, then, abandon to the un-motivated; with AI enlarging the educational gap.

If you’re forced to attain a pass rate, and can’t watch so many fail, then the certificate becomes worthless in the workplace. Or just offer paid retakes and watch AI make you money.

If you insist on persisting with coursework then a short but heavily-weighted oral part seems to be the only answer, something that will diminish teaching time as a downside, as the article and comments about the flipped classroom touched on.

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The non-coursework based exam can also probably be gamed in the end.

Students could just use the AI to teach/tutor the material to them instead, but the institutions are clutching the pearls too tightly.

Isn't that the point? To learn? If you're setting a goal that the students must pass, who cares if they get the information from the professor or they teach themselves?

I don't think "learning the material by other means" is the exam being "gamed".

Reminds me of this skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgYYOUC10aM

I thought it was going to be the Monty Python sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7fsxnzZF9w

The linked video is Planning a Heist - Key & Peele.

Please include a description of what you're linking to. People aren't likely to follow a link to an unknown YouTube video.

I think the point is most students are cheating and not learning. Where they get the information does seem to matter. Adding friction was needed for most.

if they use ai to "cheat" the exam by having the ai produce material to learn off, then they literally have just replicated a paid tutor (for cheaper).

Why is that not desirable? As long as the exam does not allow ai usage during it, i don't see the problem.

You're giving a charitable interpretation which is not warranted in reality. Scores are down across the board and even ivy leagues need to re-think its long held honor code.

I don't think it's shocking to realize that most 20 year olds (especially those growing up and seeing that success is not tied to intelligence nor hard work at all)are taking advantage of a convenient tool to cheat when given the chance.

The point is that they're not using AI to learn anything, they're using them to pass assignments without even giving it a once over. They're basically blindly copy/pasting whatever the assignment is and then copy/pasting the answer.

What’s the difference in using an AI as a tutor or paying a human tutor?

As long as they learn.

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