Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era

[Coventina]

The videos are all over social media, making students an irresistible offer: Go ahead and let A.I. do your homework — with the latest technology, you won’t get caught.

If you hate writing, you can avoid it.

Even established ed-tech companies are marketing with a wink and a nod.

These kinds of tutorials are now pervasive on TikTok and YouTube. They show students how to use tools known as humanizers and autotypers, which make it easier than ever to cheat. The videos — sometimes labeled ads, sometimes not — target college and high school students.

Humanizers rewrite A.I.-produced text to make it sound less robotic, formulaic and trite.

Autotypers slowly drip words and sentences into documents, making it appear as if papers were typed at a human pace when in fact, they were produced by A.I. They even fabricate typos, deletions and revisions.

Both tools can help students evade software designed to detect A.I.

Colleges and K-12 schools are trying to keep up, with A.I. detection becoming a significant expense. But educators attempting to restrict the technology, worried about students failing to develop basic skills, are often lagging in what tech-industry leaders are calling a detection arms race.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/ai-apps-students-cheat.html?

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Giving any kind of writing assignment now is basically useless.

I HATE AI.

And for all those "horse & buggy" apologists out there, you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
This isn't about TECH, this is about HUMANITY.

[SheltieLover]

1. Back to blue books & pens.

No devices allowed!

[ScoutHikerDad]

6. This!

Before I retired as the head of one of the largest high school English departments in my state in '24, most of the teachers in my department had switched to in-class paper and pencil essays because of rampant cheating by students using ChatGPT. I even dealt with it in my honors classes.

I am glad to be done with it, frankly. I loved my job, but it was consuming me, and destroying my mental physical health to boot. My heart goes out to everyone still doing the impossible in education.

[SheltieLover]

10. Did you read about the 1 Cornell professor who had typewriters brought in for 1 class?

The students admitted they were unable to think on their own without ai slop.

This was the Cornell, with students among the brightest & most promising.

Personally, I vehemently detest ai & absolutely refuse to use it.

Good for you reclaiming your sanity!

Enjoy your retirement.

[wnylib]

13. Long before AI, there were online services that offered to

write research papers and essays for students. They even offered choices of what grade to achieve, e.g. A, B, or C. That was so a C student who suddenly turned in an A paper would not be suspected of cheating.

Also, I met a couple good students who earned extra cash by writing papers for struggling students.

So, one of my suspicious professors popped sudden writing assignments on students, to be completed in class. Cell phones were rare then, and had no Internet access, but that could be handled today by forbidding their use during the assignment done in the classroom.

I was one of the students that he suspected of cheating. I learned about his suspicions of me from another professor who went to bat for me because I was able to discuss my papers knowledgeably when questioned and cite sources.

I studied, worked hard on my research and writing, commuted across the county for classes, and worked several hours a week in addition to full time classes. I resented students who cheated just as much as the faculty did. It was insulting to be accused of cheating just because I turned in some good papers.

The suspicious professor stopped suspecting me when I turned in a fairly good paper from his in-class experiment. Of course it had the quality of a rough draft, without time for review and editing. But apparently it was good enough for him to lay off of the accusations.

[blaeckfoeoess]

27. analogy

This echoes what I hear from many legal immigrants who work hard and came to the U.S. legally, the right way, and thus resent illegal immigrants who cheated the system and entered the U.S. illegally and now give many immigrants a bad name.

[mr715]

2. My students must hand write submissions.

[Diraven]

3. My wife is a professor

Basically she's had to change the weighting on everything so in class tests are worth way more than any homework, because almost everyone gets 100% on all the homework now that AI does it for them. Homework is essentially just studying - students can use that to learn if they want, it's up to them. She also had to make a rule that of a student fails both the midterm and final they fail the class, regardless if homework scores would have moved them into D range.

[Melon]

4. Those who lose to AI will be those that don't embrace it.

I spent an enlightened evening with a cousin who is an executive with a telecom company. He runs the project mangers. They have now changed their software coders from a hands on coding role to more of a proofing and implementation role. They hire no more H1 visa coders because AI performs the routine coding while the coders proof the code and endure implementation. The cycle of technology implementation has moved from over 6 months to 28 days on avg.

They have their own AI that learns from their own input, which avoids both the loss of data and end results based off of a bad data set to start. The changing of skill sets is occurring at a breakneck speed if people are unwilling to adapt.

[fujiyamasan]

8. This doesn't surprise me

My first guess when Claude code and others started gaining prominence was that those on the lower end of the development world are going to be screwed (I figured mainly entry level coding and those in India).

That’s probably why firms like Accenture and Cognizant are having their stocks battered. The world where an army of IT consultants came in and billed by the hour is likely dying.

Some of these changes aren’t all bad. It has in some ways democratized skills. We don’t rely on the high priests to show us the way when it comes to technology. With just a little time I can translate ideas to apps or tools. I don’t have to spend tons of time learning a programming language or hire someone to do this.

Note, I don’t believe this applies to education, but the genie is out of the bottle.

[sakabatou]

19. So it's AI doing the coding with human oversight

[Melon]

21. Yes. They are still responsible for the outcome but don't have to do the labor of coding.

[sakabatou]

32. Reminds me a little bit of Neuro-sama then

She can create and modify her non-core code, but Vedal (her creator) goes over it, tests it, and will revert to an earlier version if need be.

[lostincalifornia]

5. It could be done before AI came into prominence. To evaluate someone's knowledge that is

what tests and quizzes in the classroom without phones or electronic device access are used for.

[Torchlight]

7. I could easily see blue books coming back into the system again

and classroom-only tests (when applicable). I haven't set foot on a college campus since before the internet was a thing and have no idea how ingrained computers use has become, but given its utility for note-taking, word processing, etc., I'm guessing there's a laptop in every bookbag these days. So other than fully cutting the cord in-class and using pens and paper for writing projects, I don't see any potential solutions.

[senseandsensibility]

9. Blue books!

I couldn't remember what they were called. I wonder if they are ever used anymore, or if they will make a comeback. I have to admit I was one of those nerds who loved taking written tests with blue books.

[Melon]

11. Really...why? The reality is that the precise skills become less relevant

They would only be used in academia.
The answer is never that we then move backward. Can you think of times when that was the long term answer? Going back to a number 2 pencil will never be the answer. China is embracing AI not forcing a backward progression that will not work.

When I was in school you couldn’t use calculators. We had to learn everything long hand including all graphing. We all need basic arithmetic, which is still taught. But complex equations are performed on computers or calculators. They were banned in college and are now a requirement. They are tools. Why would AI be any different beyond learning the fundamentals.

[Coventina]

12. AI is quickly destroying critical thinking in my students.

They don't want to wrestle with anything or learn anything.

They just want the chatbot to produce something they can turn in.

But I guess you are totally OK with that.

[Melon]

15. Progress isn't backward.

Last edited Thu Jun 25, 2026, 10:54 PM - Edit history (1)

You can’t stop the advancement of technology. You’ll be left in your wagon yelling at the cars.

Hopefully we can put our minds towards different problems. It’s a fallacy to believe that man can’t develop and build a creation smarter than himself.

[Coventina]

16. So you are just going to ignore the studies that are showing AI is making people dumber?

This isn't about covered wagons, this is about humans' ability to think.

I think you'll find you will miss intelligent people when there are none left under the age of 50.

[Melon]

22. Are you saying we can put the apple back onto the tree?

I didn’t say anything about dumber people or ramifications.
I will say that it is a grave disservice to not teach AI…and not start early. It’s not going away. Jobs that can be sped up or have increased efficiency through AI will. Those proficient in its use will have huge increases in work output and hopefully a reduction in work load. Does banning it like banning any electronic used daily at a high level in work teach what is needed in the workforce? I’m not talking elementary or basic courses.

My grandfather still owned a horse in 1920…for work and transportation. He lived into the 1990’s.
There are many step changes in technology that we may see in a lifetime. Will it change the society….? It absolutely can. Like planes and cars and ….. There is no moving backwards because we compete globally whether you can see it or not. Our competitors aren’t having this discussion. They are implementing. So are every top 500 business.

[Coventina]

23. Well, they won't be learning it in my classes, and if they use it and are caught they will fail.

They don't get a pass on learning to think for themselves in my courses.

[GenThePerservering]

24. These are all false equivalancies

There are no horse and buggies here - we're talking about the replacement of human thought with something with no oversight. It's not like the printing press. It's not like the inception of PCs. It's the replacement of human thought.

[fujiyamasan]

33. In some ways it is like the printing press

At least it depends on the industry. When it comes to coding, it is very similar. It removes the need of having the high priest coding class dictate what can and cannot be done. Those with advanced knowledge and skills will survive but it’s now possible for those without to put their ideas into an actual working app.

[fujiyamasan]

26. I think it's really a question about the appropriate use of AI in the classroom

And in some subjects it’s hard to find an application of AI (or even tech) that makes the learning experience richer and more thoughtful.

That’s probably the case in most subjects, unless it’s an actual computer science class in AI or perhaps a different science or engineering class where you’re actually building AI applications/projects.

[hunter]

20. Maybe this civilization needs to die before we humans can truly progress.

Seems likely that it will be imitation intelligence or global warming that takes us down. Pick your poison -- one or both.

I don't see how this technology brings any greater meaning to life. A term paper written by some LLM is simply noise. Any fool can make noise.

[fujiyamasan]

17. Are you making changes to your curriculum or pedagogy to address this?

Is your university?

What are your solutions? What are your proposed solutions?

[Coventina]

18. I am moving to assignments that are not homework based.

I have started using blue-books.

I've also started doing much more in-person and group assignments.

Attendance and participation are now most of the grade, rather than homework assignments.
Also, all electronics are forbidden in my classroom.

[Torchlight]

28. I think we can safely say there are more than two possibilities

and work from that rather than undefined and unsupported assertions.

[Mossfern]

31. One issue though....

Students no longer learn to write in cursive so hand printing essay test answers would take hours and lots of cramped hands.

[anciano]

14. AI technology is the new reality of modern life.....

acceptance and adaptation are no longer optional as AI proficiency will be a prerequisite for the jobs and careers of the future.

[GenThePerservering]

25. ai worship has certainly brought gullibility to the fore.

[Ron Green]

29. Here's a good read:

Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV. If anything, he doesn’t go quite far enough in his call to “disarm” A.I.

[flvegan]

30. A new age of learned helplessness. n/t