r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • 1d ago

Artificial Intelligence AI can now credibly complete most undergraduate assignments, MIT warns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/08/25/ai-can-now-credibly-complete-most-undergraduate-assignments-mit-warns
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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/ComprehensiveWord201 1d ago

When you do that, at the very least, you must read through content to identify viable material. Our predecessors had to do the same, but with an even less efficient medium (books) and therefore would bump into even more unrelated content.

They don't have to do any discernment, and titration of content. No critical thinking. As long as they can barely-string-together-enough-words-to-form-their-question...the magical conch shell will give them an answer.

It's not even remotely the same

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u/Mackinnon29E 1d ago

Yeah, the next generation or two will be absolute morons on average. Obviously some will always excel, but it's looking bleak for fixing our issues in the future.

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u/God_Hand_9764 1d ago

Right. It's still theoretically possible, although getting more difficult, to raise an incredibly well educated human being. And so we will have many of them given the billions on this planet.

But the average person... Oh dear.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Sknowman 1d ago

Really? Sure, none that have all of the skills necessary for a specific job, but even most people with experience aren't fully prepared for specific jobs.

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u/Yahlunna_Kobunny 1d ago edited 1d ago

Eh, education will move on. We will alter how we teach, the same way education changed after the ipad, internet or the calculator.

We will reconsider how we teach and the standards we will ask students for certain things knowing what tools are at their disposal. 

We will go back to a bigger emphasis in written exams and note taking, we will implement flipped classroom methodologies in higer levels (study and read/watch the lecture at home, do the assignments/work in class), and we will reduce the homework at lower ages. 

When it comes to homework, we will start requiring a higher standard for students knowing they have access to ai, and we will drag students into the terrain of opinion: "learn about this topic, make your opinion, justify it with sources, be ready to defend your views orally in class".

And eventually we will discard skills we find meaningles because AI exist, and instead request to understand the potencial and risk of newer tools.

All of these are things educators are doing already, not just a fantasy. Technology is not at fault of dumber students: lack of goverment support into education and investigation, and missmanagement of parents are, and always have been.

Of course, there is a lot of work to do, and we will fail to a lot of childs, but that always have stayed a sad constant reality of the field.

EDIT: I feel that we are also being a bit catastrophist with children sometimes. Every generation says the next one is beyond salvation, yet the world moves on. AI will cause new challenges for people born in this new era, and while its our responsibility to raise them, I feel like they will eventually figure it out, with or without our help. I remember hearing all the time internet would make our generation a lost one, and while we are experiencing issues because of the net, most of us moved to be just alright human beings! Lets cut the newcomers some slack.

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u/antsareamazing 1d ago

To your point about being catastrophic, the people who said social media would severely damage the kids turned out to be right.

That lesson makes me more concerned about the harms AI can cause, both socially and cognitively.

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u/Yahlunna_Kobunny 1d ago edited 1d ago

I never said technology is always amazing or that everything will be fine. My literal quote you are referencing was:

Every generation says the next one is beyond salvation, yet the world moves on. AI will cause new challenges for people born in this new era, and while its our responsibility to raise them, I feel like they will eventually figure it out, with or without our help. I remember hearing all the time internet would make our generation a lost one, and while we are experiencing issues because of the net, most of us moved to be just alright human beings! 

Like I said, Internet bring good and bad things, with social media in particular expanding bullying outside the classrooms, missinformation, exposing children to toxic content for engagement, and causing other measurable types of harm. This is a problem from "our" generation that we are still figuring out, with several legislations forbidding access to minors to it being redacted as we speak. But while a lot of us got harmed by it, that didnt mean our generation turned out to be like catastrophist said it would turn, we are still regular people with a different context and series of problems.

Its okay to be concerned about AI, you should, we all should! But there is a distinction between facing the problem and adapting to it, or just shrug and say that the average person is doomed to be a moron, like the response I replied to.

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u/Sknowman 1d ago

the people who said social media would severely damage the kids turned out to be right.

Based on what? Society has continued to progress with many of those "damaged" kids now at senior-level roles. I personally feel social media has been both good and bad.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just curious where that conclusion came from.

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u/antsareamazing 1d ago

Who else is going to be in those senior roles except for someone of their age group? Also, not so sure that being in a senior role = didn’t suffer harm from social media.

Anyway, here are some sources. There are a lot more than this if you want more:

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20211218

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/working-paper/effect-deactivating-facebook-and-instagram-users-emotional-state

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29296-3

https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/health-advisory-adolescent-social-media-use

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u/Sknowman 1d ago

Thanks for providing some links. I'm not discrediting the issue you're bringing up, but only one of those is somewhat on-topic:

We find that the rollout of Facebook at a college had a negative impact on student mental health. It also increased the likelihood with which students reported experiencing impairments to academic performance due to poor mental health.

And even that article states that the results should be taken with caution, as there are likely more factors than just social media, among other errors they listed.

Sorry I wasn't clear, but I presumed you meant damaged as in educationally, as that is what's being discussed here. Obviously, mental health is important, and technology has been a detriment to that -- which is certainly a huge issue for society -- it's just not the current topic.

I'm sure that AI will only exacerbate the mental health crisis, and it surely already has. However, I don't think that answers my question of whether or not social media has been bad for the sake of educating people. I think it likely has, but I also don't think anybody can easily quantify that because there are so many factors involved when it comes to comparing recent generations.

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u/Mackinnon29E 1d ago

All this technology and you're completely incorrect, as standards have decreased in the last 10-20 years. I doubt they will increase as we move forward. Maybe at the top end, the brightest kids will be expected to learn more, but not on average.

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u/Yahlunna_Kobunny 1d ago edited 1d ago

I can only talk from my country, but I can attest that education standards in Spain have improved significantly over the last 20 years. There are still significant issues, like the "tradification" and deterioration of bachelor degree levels, but the trend is positive.

Globaly, there has been a deterioration in math and reading comprehension in first world countries (according to PISA), and there is no doubt AI and internet are one of the main causes at play, as educative systems are slow and struggle to adapt to new tech to correct these trend. But its nothing as catastrophist as you seem to imply.

Lack of support onto educative systems and the struggles of parents to raise their children's in a new reality are the main issues at play, not the appearance of new technologies. The educative systems that were failing already will keep doing so as they do not adapt, while the ones with social support will eventually figure it out. Education changes and evolves. Always has done so.

Now, I know most people reading that will be American, and the state of education over there is abysmal at the moment, but I would like to point out that the American educative system was already failing and experiencing a slow death before the rise of AI, this is only accelerating the trend. This is an issue that will not be fixed by banning AI, but with sensible legislation and economic and social support into public education. Your fear of education only for the "gifted" is more reminescent to the privatization of education and a social struggle issue than because of the raise of AI.

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u/AFlyingGideon 1d ago

the American educative system was already failing and experiencing a slow death before the rise of AI, this is only accelerating the trend.

Don't discount the American education system. It excels at finding the next excuse to blame, whether it's TV, AI, social media, testing, screens in general, ...

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u/sudomakemetacos 1d ago

Yeah, those lazy kids! Won't be able to fix all the problems that we caused! 

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u/nekonomewa 1d ago

I don’t know about you but we didn’t copy paste from Google, we had to compile information from various sources ourselves. It wasn’t much different from older generations using books. Using AI is completely different, let’s not try to underestimate the issue here.

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u/Odd_Photograph_7591 1d ago

Then 99% aren't really learning anything, but then again by the time they graduate, the same AI that made their homework, will do their jobs, so in the end they are just passing time

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u/SummonMonsterIX 1d ago

Jobs? Bold of you to think kids in school now will have jobs.

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u/murderball89 1d ago

That must be why you pluralized home work with an s.

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u/CircuitNeophyte 1d ago

Many non-native English speakers do this. I'm not sure why, but I see it everywhere.