Implications of AI to schools

I agree. Most campuses use a product called Turnitin, which was originally designed to check for plagiarism. Now they claim it can detect AI-generated content with about 80% accuracy, but I don’t think anyone here believes that.

When I was in college, there was a cheating scandal for the final exam where somehow people got their hands on the hardest question of the exam.

The professor noticed it (presumably via seeing poor "show your work") and gave zero points on the question to everyone. And once you went to complain about your grade, she would ask you to explain the answer there in her office and work through the problem live.

I thought it was a clever and graceful way to deal with it.

Doesn't google docs have fairly robust edit history? If I was a student these days I'd either record my screen of me doing my homework, or at least work in google docs and share the edit history.

Now imagine this but its a courtroom and you're facing 25 years

Easy if one of these options might be available to the writer:

- Write it in google docs, and share the edit history in the google docs, it is date and time stamped.

- Make a video of writing it in the google docs tab.

If this is available, and sufficient, I would pursue a written apology to remind the future detectors.

Edit: clarity

edit history in Google docs is a good way to defend yourself from AI tool use accusations

I seriously think the people selling AI detection tools to teachers should be sued into the ground by a coalition of state attorneys general, and that the tools should be banned in schools.

Yep, it's easy to shortcut AI plagiarism, but you need time. In most of the universities around the world (online universities especially), the number of students is way too big, while professors get more and more pressure on publishing and bureaucracy.

So we are screwed once we get brain-computer interfaces?

> in class programming exams are basically the same thing as leetcode job interviews, and we all know what a bad proxy those are for "real" development work.

Confusing university learning for "real industry work" is a mistake and we've known it's a mistake for a while. We can have classes which teach what life in industry is like, but assuming that the role of university is to teach people how to fit directly into industry is mistaking the purpose of university and K-12 education as a whole.

Writing long-form prose and essays isn't something I've done in a long time, but I wouldn't say it was wasted effort. Long-form prose forces you to do things that you don't always do when writing emails and powerpoints, and I rely on those skills every day.

I use it every day.

Preparing for a test requires understanding what the instructor wants. concentrate on the wrong thing get marked down.

Same applies to working in a corporation. You need to understand what management wants. It’s a core requirement.

I agree, I think schools and universities need to adapt, just like calculators, these things aren't going away. Let students leverage AI as tools and come out of Uni more capable than we did.

AI _do_ currently throw in an occasional wrong thing. Sometimes a lot. A students job needs to be verifying and fact checking the information the AI is telling them.

The student's job becomes asking the right questions and verifying the results.

> There is a whole huge cohort of kids out there

Well, it seems the vast majority doesn't care about cheating, and is using AI for everything. And this is from primary school to university.

It's not just that AI makes it simpler, so many pupils cannot concentrate anymore. Tiktok and others have fried their mind. So AI is a quick way out for them. Back to their addiction.

What possible solution could prevent this? The best students are learning on their own anyways, the school can't stop students using AI for their personal learning.

There was a reddit thread recently that asked the question, are all students really doing worse, and it basically said that, there are still top performers performing toply, but that the middle has been hollowed out.

So I think, I dunno, maybe depressing. Maybe cynical, but probably true. Why shy away from the truth?

And by the way, I would be both. Probably would have used AI to further my curiosity and to cheat. I hated school, would totally cheat to get ahead, and am now wildly curious and ambitious in the real world. Maybe this makes me a bad person, but I don't find cheating in school to be all that unethical. I'm paying for it, who cares how I do it.

People aren't one thing.

Sure, but the point is that if 5% of students are using AI then you have to assume that any work done outside classroom has used AI, because otherwise you're giving a massive advantage to the 5% of students who used AI, right?

ChatGPT just told me to put the turkey in my toaster oven legs facing the door, and you think it can replace school. Unless there is a massive architectural change that can be provably verified by third parties, this can never be. I’d hate for my unschooled surgeon to check an llm while I’m under.

It is considered valuable and worthwhile for a society to educate all of its children/citizens. This means we have to develop systems and techniques to educate all kinds of people, not just the ones who can be dropped off by themselves at a library when they turn five, and picked up again in fifteen years with a PHD.

For someone that wants to learn, I agree with this 100%. AI has been great at teaching me about 100s of topics.

I don't yet know how we get AI to teach unruly kids, or kids with neurodivergencies. Perhaps, though, the AI can eventually be vastly superior to an adult because of the methods it can use to get through to the child, keep the child interested and how it presents the teaching in a much more interactive way.

Yesterday's Doonesbury was on point here: https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2025/11/23

Andrej and Garry Trudeau are in agreement that "blue book exams" (I.e. the teacher gives you a blank exam booklet, traditionally blue) to fill out in person for the test, after confiscating devices, is the only way to assess students anymore.

My 7 year old hasn't figured out how to use any LLMs yet, but I'm sure the day will come very soon. I hope his school district is prepared. They recently instituted a district-wide "no phones" policy, which is a good first step.

It is, but it does not matter, because:

1. Corporate interests want to sell product 2. Administrators want a product they can use 3. Compliance people want a checkbox they can check 4. Teachers want to be ablet to continue what they have been doing thus far within the existing ecosystem 5. Parents either don't know, don't care, or do, but are unable to provide a viable alternative or, can and do provide it

We have had this conversation ( although without AI component ) before. None of it is really secret. The question is really what is the actual goal. Right now, in US, education is mostly in name only -- unless you are involved ( which already means you are taking steps to correct it ) or are in the right zip code ( which is not a guarantee, but it makes your kids odds better ).