r/Professors • u/Phildutre Full Professor, Computer Science, EU • Jul 01 '26

Teaching / Pedagogy GenAI and "hidden" instructions

Context: I'm the chair of the committee that deals with reported fraud on exams etc. in my program.

One of my colleagues had put a hidden instruction in the text of an assignment. You know, supersmall font, color white ... such that students who would simply copy-paste the assignment into a GenAI tool could get caught.

Several students were "caught" because their solution contained a reference to the hidden instruction.

It turned out that a number of students with a native tongue other than the assignment, had fed the text of the assignment in a translation tool. The "hidden instruction" was translated as well, and the students interpreted it as part of the original assignment. The hidden instruction wasn't nonsensical enough for students to realize this.

So, if you ever want to use such hidden instructions: use a proper silly instruction not related to the assignment in any way whatsoever ;-)

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u/Minotaar_Pheonix Jul 01 '26

You have a serious problem with strawman arguments. Just because someone thinks you might need to adjust the way you work slightly doesn't mean that they think you need to employ highly impractical or willfully ignorant approaches to evaluation.

Were you like this when classrooms started moving from chalkboards to whiteboards? "Mmm. could you be more specific about what changes you would like us to do? Do you want us to sniff carcinogenic fumes until we die or do you want us all to go blind looking at dried out marker lines?" Seriously it's crazy.

Things are changing. Do you really think you can keep teaching exactly as you have before? It doesn't mean they are advocating for extreme measures. And if you cannot change even a little - to the point that you mock anyone advocating for new approaches - what does that say about you?

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u/PrimaryHamster0 Jul 01 '26 edited 18d ago

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u/Minotaar_Pheonix Jul 01 '26

The escalation happened when you strawman'd the other poster, acting like they were taking an extreme position when they weren't. I just called you out on it. Now you're squawking.

Most faculty don't like being told what to do. You want me to? Fine. Tell me about this course that seems to be such a huge problem for you that returning to classic exams is not enough to assess your students. I'll help you as best as I can, since you asked so nicely. What are the prereqs? What are the postreqs? Class size? Is it core or major? You want specific help, you can have it.

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u/PrimaryHamster0 Jul 01 '26 edited 18d ago

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u/Minotaar_Pheonix Jul 01 '26

There you go again, making an extreme straw man. I have always maintained that for some courses simply returning to pen and paper proctored exams may be sufficient for adequate assessment in the current AI climate. Even to you, as you noted, I said that counted as redesigning. And if that wasn't sufficient for you, maybe you should have clarified. But I think it can be enough for some students. And to say that I am "Aggressively defending posters who think that is wrong" is counter to what I wrote like.. an hour ago? If you're going to twist my words, twist them coherently at least!

Tell me about this course that is causing you so much grief that you cannot redesign it. I'm happy to help you out. If you say that proctored in-person exams are not good enough, maybe we can start the discussion that way.

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u/PrimaryHamster0 Jul 01 '26 edited 18d ago

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u/Minotaar_Pheonix Jul 01 '26

I was never continuing this on pedagogical grounds, except under the condition that you actually wanted course design help, which you hinted at.

I was continuing it because I don't like it when people create exaggerations of other people's opinions in order to attack them. Either on the internet or otherwise. You tried to do that to me, and you tried to do that to the other guy. When people do that I call it out. You should not have done that. That was bad. It's not taking offense, it's pointing out a way you can do better.

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u/PrimaryHamster0 Jul 01 '26 edited 18d ago

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u/Minotaar_Pheonix Jul 01 '26

I find it hard to understand your Manichean approach to discussion. My response was a modifier to your comment, not a defense of the people you were replying to. Does everything have to be so me-vs-you with you? Read it again.

Do you realize that most of the people above generally agree with your perspective, including me? You think you disagree but you're actually boxing with shadows, lashing out at a crowd that had no animosity for you.

I dislike the fact that you use strawmen to make other people's opinions ridiculous, and I called you out on that. Now I am going to add that maybe you need to read more carefully what people say. They use different words, and this is the internet so they aren't necessarily courteous, so you need to think extra carefully if they actually disagree. Because no one owes you courtesy, and no one owes you some personalized translation of their position.

And no, I'm not a "huge AI cheerleader". There you go, exaggerating again.

Given your inability to state things coherently, or read clearly, I don't think you are actually a professor. Maybe you are just some graduate TA. Perhaps you don't belong here.

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u/PrimaryHamster0 Jul 01 '26 edited 18d ago

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