Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI To Cheat (insidehighered.com)
- Reference: 0184398004
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/10/2215249/brown-professor-suspects-majority-of-his-class-used-ai-to-cheat
- Source link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat
> For the first time since he started teaching Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory nearly two decades ago, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano gave his students a take-home midterm this spring. Quite a few students had expressed anxiety about being in a classroom after a gunman killed two students and injured nine in a [2]December mass shooting at Brown , and so "it was appropriate," he said, to allow students to take their exams at home. But by the end of the semester, Serrano regretted the decision. Dozens of students in the class [3]likely used artificial intelligence to cheat and earn perfect or near-perfect scores on their midterm , he said. Serrano in turn made the final exam in-person, which led more than a dozen students to drop the course and even more to fail it.
>
> Administrators' response to the widespread cheating event has been "meek," he said, and the incident has raised questions about how universities can -- and should -- respond to AI-enabled cheating at scale. "I am not declaring [the midterm] void for now. I am going to give the class a chance to prove me wrong," he wrote. "That is, if the distribution of the final exam is roughly similar to the distribution of the midterm, I will count the midterm. Otherwise, which is of course what I expect to happen, I will declare the midterm void and reweigh the final accordingly." Serrano heard crickets from his students, but 18 of them subsequently dropped the class. Nine students remained enrolled but did not take the final exam. And Serrano said the results proved him right; three students earned a zero, and the average score on the final was 48.6 percent -- by far a historic low, he said. Previously, the average final exam score had never dropped below 65 percent. Only a few students scored similarly to how they did on the midterm.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Brown_University_shooting
[3] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat
Cheating is too easy (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, props to student 22 who clearly didn't cheat on the midterm and managed to do better on the final, but it looks like about 85 out of 89 students cheated.
With cheating being so easy, professors really need to be having in-person tests to see if the students are learning anything. I wonder if giving students the exact same test out of class and then in class would show who cheated more clearly
The death of homework (Score:3)
AI is too easy to use, when the work is done at home. And I say, good riddance. Homework has for decades been a substitute for learning. AP classes aren't actually "advanced" they just require more homework. If AI kills all those extra hours of busywork, that's a good thing. Exercises and essays and workbooks can be done in school.
Re:The death of homework (Score:5, Insightful)
Homework is for practice. It is for students to exercise the knowledge they have gained. To fix it in their minds as more than a passing thought. To enhance retention of the materiel. Listen to the lecture, read the book, practice the exercise... retain the knowledge.
There is no point to grading homework. Except as a feedback loop for the students. So that they know what they thought they understood -but did not.
In class time is for lectures, discussions, and Q&A. Don't waste the interactive time doing things that can be done solo.
Re: (Score:3)
Homework is also for reading topics that can be discussed in the next class.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree with the value of practice. I disagree with the *quantity* of practice imposed on students. Much of that practice can be accomplished during class time. If school hours aren't long enough to allow this, why not make school hours longer! This would solve other problems as well, such as making it easier for parents to have jobs while their kids are in school.
The quantity of homework has gone up significantly since I grew up in the 1970s. We used to have a few scattered homework assignments. C
Re: (Score:2)
> AI is too easy to use, when the work is done at home. And I say, good riddance. Homework has for decades been a substitute for learning. AP classes aren't actually "advanced" they just require more homework. If AI kills all those extra hours of busywork, that's a good thing.
The historically-bad results of the final at least suggest that doing out-of-class work themselves actually helps students.
Seems fair (Score:1)
All the teachers use AI now to grade papers. Seem like turnabout is fair play!
Let them "cheat", the education system is a joke. (Score:1)
This is the punchline.
Gold star for everyone!
If your exams are so easy students can cheat on them, that is a professor problem.
I had classes in college where you could have had the internet and phone a friend and still probably would not pass the exam without properly knowing the material; I respected those subjects.
The classes where you were not allowed to bring a back pack, nor wear a baseball hat, and only could use a #2 pencil to the exam were a joke; nothing taught, nothing learned.
If you want to pay t
Part of a bigger crisis in education (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a fundamental crisis going on in colleges that has nothing to do with AI.
The professor wants a classroom full of students who actually care about what he has to teach. The administration wants those students, their paying customers, to keep paying.
Universities have had this crisis brewing for a long time:
We made a college degree necessary for most desirable jobs. Universities loved this, college degrees grew at a massive rate, the cost of them grew even more.
Then all at once they realize that hey, the students who are there, don't actually *want* to be there. They just want to buy their diplomas and get out, and act accordingly.
They can't have it both ways, this tension has been a thing for a long time.
Something fundamental has to give.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you CAN have it both ways: Announce at the beginning: "If you want, I will give you a B- (or whatever grade works) but to get this grade you must promise never to set foot in the class and never to speak about the topic of this course with anyone on campus. Otherwise, we will explore the syllabus completely free from the stench of grade-grubbers who are at the school in order to get some sort of imagined advantage in the world." Then, no tests. Grades or evaluations will be felt out as the class goe
Re: not really (Score:3)
I taught there as a grad student a couple of decades ago, and the level of academic motivation of the undergrads I encountered was shockingly low even then. Of course, I had done my own undergrad at a school best known for its high level of student suicides, so I suppose it's all a matter of perspective.
Ironically enough, my best, most motivated student by far was the "nepo baby" in the class, the child of a very famous Hollywood star.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember being a college student....many years ago....
I was really into computer science, and also philosophy. I took those classes with great eagerness. Oh and foreign language too.
I couldn't care less about the other crap they required me to take in order to make my education well-rounded. Physics just didn't do it for me. I was a native English speaker already and learned nothing from the lit and creative writing classes. There was Art appreciation, mythology, some phys ed...all blow off classes t
Re: (Score:2)
"Education is wasted on the young."
Lisa Gets an "A" (Score:2)
Lisa Gets an "A"
Re: (Score:2)
> It is really, really hard to get to that level of academic achievement without a genuine desire to learn.
No, it's not.
My generation solved this with one simple trick (Score:1)
It occurs to me that I had an advantage over kids today, in that there were different forces at play, such that I had to take tests in classrooms, so it was either learn shit or get a bad grade. I don't think of the forces that put me into classrooms as all that exceptional, but I think the young 'uns really do have one really unusual one, that I (as well as my parents' generation, now that I think of) just, somehow, skipped right over.
You see, back in my day, we did a lot less of this ..
> Quite a few studen
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm wondering, what can we do to help younger people be terrified out of their minds all the time instead of just in common-sense situations like crowds? We need to help them understand that they're safe nowhere, so they're not-particularly- un safe anywhere, so they can show the fuck up and take exams.
That's been happening since the 70s with climate hysteria - we've been told for decades that the world is going to end in 10 years, that we're hitting a tipping point in 10 years, etc, etc, etc.
And let's be clear: the climate is absolutely changing, but it's clear nobody knows the mid term timing of larger impacts.
Oh Sure (Score:2)
Come on. You don't need AI to cheat on a take-home test. The problem isn't the AI.
2 years of Spanish, can't speak a word. (Score:2)
My son used Google Translate extensively during his remote (COVID) year 1 Spanish class. Told him not to, but you can't ride the kid all day with a job to keep.
OTOH, the school district provided him with a substitute teacher for the class who didn't speak Spanish either, so there's enough blame to go around.
But after missing ALL of the education from year 1, he had no foundation for year 2, and kept cheating his way through.
I'm disappointed, but he'll bear the cost as he goes on. I hope he's learned his les
Education needs reinvention (Score:2)
The old way of sending a student home to write a paper is dead.
Imagine a future where each student has an AI tutor, precisely matched to the student's talents and weaknesses.
The tutor would know exactly how the student is progressing throughout the process.
If a student was learning quickly, the tutor would present the material faster.
If the student was struggling, the tutor would focus on the problem areas.
No exams would be needed.
Re: (Score:2)
> Imagine a future where each student has an AI tutor, precisely matched to the student's talents and weaknesses.
That sounds amazing, but it's still in the future.
are you kidding? (Score:1)
i teach university classes and the majority of the students use AI for just about everything. if you put them in a situation where they cant use AI they fail utterly. they are completely addicted/dependent on AI. they have no ability to problem solve anymore.
Education as mere job training (Score:2)
Yes, I understand that it's reasonable for people to attend university in order to get well-paying jobs. But regarding higher education primarily as a route to impressive wealth, an easy life, and early retirement is a real problem.
There was a time when at least a significant portion of university students - and even college students - chose courses and careers based on aptitude, interest, and even passion. Now, it seems that most young people are looking for the shortest path of least resistance to an easy
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you hate welfare, and want to kill everyone on it - studying the economics of it will help you do that.
Also, this is not about a Brown professor, it's about Brown students.
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:4, Funny)
This can only get unintentionally funnier.
Re: (Score:3)
[1]Got you covered [youtu.be].
[1] https://youtu.be/uIciVwFeoEM
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:4, Informative)
I must admit, the title of the course sounds a bit political, but I thought best to look it up before leaping wildly to conclusions:
> While the words "welfare" and "social choice" might sound like political buzzwords to a layperson, in academia they refer to highly formal, mathematical subfields of standard microeconomic theory.
> Taught for decades by Professor Roberto Serrano, it is known as a rigorous, proof-heavy class rather than a political forum. If you recently heard about the class in the news, it is likely due to an academic integrity controversy involving a take-home exam and suspected student use of generative AI, rather than anything related to politics.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, based on this comment, you would have gotten an A in the first half of his class.