Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown • Hacker News Board

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#761

Post by applicative » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 11:36 AM UTC

anthonypasq wrote: post #671

sithadmin wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should anything more complicated than what could be automated with a paper ScanTron form really be subject to automated grading anyway?

the existence of scantron and the laziness of teachers have turned nearly all assessments into multiple choice which is a terrible type of question. Now we have the technology to have better more signal-heavy types of questions to also be graded automatically. seems like a good thing.

Teacher salaries have collapsed since the fifties - when, by the way, we could get the brainuest element of half the population due to institutional sexism. My jr high teachers would be federal judges today. They were worth about 7 times what we paid them then; we pay them less in relation to other highly trained services today.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#762

Post by bjackman » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC

doodpants wrote: post #657

bjackman wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how many times in that 9 years have you written on paper for 2 hours straight? Even as a kid who did it regularly, it sucked. Doing it now I really don't think I could deliver my intellectual best while worrying about if anyone can read my handwriting and whether I'm gonna cramp up by the end of the exam. Pen and paper is just not a very good way to produce text.

> Pen and paper is just not a very good way to produce text. Pen and paper are literally designed to produce text.

Horse carts are literally designed to transport people but they aren't very good at it compared to cars

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#763

Post by bjackman » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

tedd4u wrote: post #693

bjackman wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how many times in that 9 years have you written on paper for 2 hours straight? Even as a kid who did it regularly, it sucked. Doing it now I really don't think I could deliver my intellectual best while worrying about if anyone can read my handwriting and whether I'm gonna cramp up by the end of the exam. Pen and paper is just not a very good way to produce text.

> Pen and paper is just not a very good way to produce text Can you say more? It's worked well for 4,500 years. Probably the most important invention ever.

No? Some subsets of the world has papyrus I guess but for most people during most of that time people were pressing text into clay and wax and stuff, it must have fucking sucked.

Then we got paper and pens and that was a pretty decent interim for a short period. Then about 100 years ago we got typing. Then about 20 years ago we reached a world where almost everyone is better at typing than they are at writing.

Obviously it's still important that people can write by hand, but expecting people to do it for more than a few hundred words at a time is idiotic. Would you like your clothes to be hand sewn too? That also worked for thousands of years (much longer than writing) but we stopped doing it for a very good reason.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#764

Post by ninalanyon » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 11:24 AM UTC

mkl wrote: post #534

ninalanyon wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They send your transcripts out with an explanatory note, so that the recipient will not view the graduate poorly when they see the numbers. That's odd, I would expect any employer for whom the class of degree mattered to know the reputation of the university. For instance second from Oxford is probably going to be as desirable as a first from Oxford Brooks (formerly Oxford Poly).

Everyone knows Oxford, but the are many thousands of universities, most of which are not known to most employers. I am not an employer, but I work in higher education and see transcripts of transferring and exchange students, and many (probably most) come with some kind of guide on how to interpret the grades, because there are a huge variety of ways of assigning them and defining them (e.g. at some universities a D…

It's a bit more standardised in Europe I think.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#765

Post by pixlmint » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:49 PM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #591

pixlmint wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all our exams are in-person.

Ah. Nice! Which university is this? (I keep a list of how seriously to take grades from various places, and this is notable info)

ZHAW, a swiss institute. The locked-down browser we use is developed by ETH, a pretty highly regarded swiss university.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#766

Post by forgetfreeman » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

tengwar2 wrote: post #556

forgetfreeman wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have absolutely no concern over a 20 yr old's ability to weather the rigors of manipulating a 7 gram pencil. It's not like we're talking about getting them to spend a week on a roofing crew or swap their gaming mouse for a set of post hole diggers here. If someone needs an accommodation then that should absolutely be made available.

Nothing to do with weight. It's a cramp in the muscles of the hand from holding the pen and making fine movements for hours. I'm guessing you are from a generation after keyboard use became common, so you haven't encountered it.

Right and wrong. I am of a generation before common keyboard usage. As far as writers cramp goes, we all got it from time to time. At worst it was a minor nuisance compared to the skinned knees, bruises, and occasional broken bone that we racked up recreationally.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#767

Post by jyounker » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 8:58 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #655

jyounker wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accommodations for those who have problems with writing has been a thing for a long time. It's fascinating to see all the people here who are arguing that it is impossible to do what we did all the time in my step-daughter's childhood, my childhood, my parents' childhoods, my grandparents' childhoods, etc.

> Accommodations for those who have problems with writing has been a thing for a long time. What is practical changes over time. Insistence that "We always did X => That's enough" makes no sense in a universe where the only constant is change itself. In 1926 it's not really practical to even have a global voice conversation, even world leaders must travel in person to properly negotiate or send trusted negotiators. B…

So how does that change what's practical with regards to testing at major universities or high schools? The things that were possible then are still possible now.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#768

Post by jyounker » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #682

jyounker wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developing fine motor control for cursive is actually improving cerebellar function. It turns out that the cerebellum is a general "organ" for fine control and synchronization of neural function across the brain. It is implicated in: * Reading and responding to other people's emotions. * Emotional regulation. * Generalized sequencing. * Musical ability. * Counting. * Following patterns. While you may see it as a wast…

It's hard for me to imagine how fine motor control applies to cursive in a way that doesn't apply to block writing.

Smooth curving lines connecting into each other are very different from intersecting straight lines with clear stopping and starting points.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#769

Post by jyounker » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

customguy wrote: post #714

recursive wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard for me to imagine how fine motor control applies to cursive in a way that doesn't apply to block writing.

One kid in my school didn't write cursive, but wrote block letters so beautifully, it looked near printed. And he was probably faster than most. He also played the piano since young age and is a professional pianist now, so yeah :) So I would totally put it on the same level, theoretically. That is, you can write block letters with just as much skill and care as you can cursive, I think. Just like you can write cursi…

Sounds like you remember that person because they were exceptional. That doesn't make them a good argument for the general case.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#770

Post by alsetmusic » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

gaoshan wrote: post #659

mrngld wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? For all the money paid by modern students is it unreasonable to expect some expert human interaction? The cost explosion has been centered outside the classroom, elsewhere in the org, so can't play that card.

You should see how little many of the people providing that expert human interaction are paid. My wife is a professor (in the humanities) with 2 decades of experience and degrees from excellent schools, gets top reviews from students as well and she barely earns enough to live on. If I weren't in tech we would be financially destitute. She already works 60 hours a week with just the courses, prep, grading and meeting…

A strong argument for reform. The costs of higher education have multiplied while the people providing the education have probably not moved meaningfully, or may have declined with inflation. All that money going to management and other executive corporate positions should be clawed back. How can a person enter a contract to be in debt for decades and your spouse is still paid so little from the arrangement? It’s wage theft.