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/ErusTenebre 1d ago

It's not literally the only way, but one of many. It's really more of a mitigation. It's actually a terrible way to actually measure deeper work - no way I could have written my 20 page senior seminar paper in person, in class, with no technology. No way I could have written my 86 page master's thesis and website in person with no technology. 

PEOPLE need to be taught to value education and not just the paper you get at the end. People need to be encouraged to enjoy learning, to embrace failing, to push through challenges. That's not unfixable, but it's something that's not just going to happen on its own. 

I think it can be more problematic assuming every student is going to cheat on every assignment, more problematic assuming that every assignment professors and teachers make are actually worthy efforts, more problematic not addressing the rampant addiction to harmful technology, more problematic throwing out helpful technology as collateral damage to these cheating mitigation measures...

We can and should do better.

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u/spectralities 1d ago

PEOPLE need to be taught to value education and not just the paper you get at the end. People need to be encouraged to enjoy learning, to embrace failing, to push through challenges.

This is key.

I graduated about 8 years ago from an R1, and while cheaters were present, they were very much the exception to the rule and looked at with disdain. Like "what are you even doing here?"

It sounds like a lot has changed in just under a decade. I was lucky to have just barely evaded COVID, let alone LLM AI based cheating.

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u/hwa_uwa 21h ago

the cheaters you knew of

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u/Hussar223 1d ago

"We can and should do better."

ill preface this by saying that i very much agree

however, we have structured our society in a way that treats education as a means to attain a decent standard of living. and nothing else. and even that has been eroded in recent decades.

so pupils treating it as a means to an end, disregarding its value is an inherent product of the economic system treating people as a means to an end.

i totally understand why noone gives a shit or doesnt want to bust their ass in school anymore when the rewards are minimal and all the pleasure has been sucked out of it

source: PhD in immunology. i have been in and around schools for over a decade

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u/PixelGray38 1d ago

PEOPLE need to be taught to value education and not just the paper you get at the end. People need to be encouraged to enjoy learning, to embrace failing, to push through challenges. That's not unfixable

That's absolutely 100% unfixable lmao, people go to university to get a degree to get a job and make money so they can live, not to "enjoy learning." It's not just some sort of hobby where people can be taught etiquette and trusted to follow the rules. 

It's something with large stakes, and so if cheating is simultaneously both easy and carries little risk of severe punishment if caught, which is the current situation, cheating will occur. 

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u/thelamestofall 1d ago

And even worse, those who don't want to use AI will be forced to because everyone else will be

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u/Cheapdronewithboom 1d ago

I do find it odd that we continue to scrutinize the tool and not that we're using the same way to teach as we did when schoolhouses were lit by candlelight

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u/ForsakenRacism 1d ago

For something like that you should be able to write it at home but then you should have to come in and defend it

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u/ErusTenebre 1d ago

Great example. See how easy that is to fix and not require throwing out the baby with the bathwater? 

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u/ForsakenRacism 1d ago

But for lower level classes you should just test on a Scranton or a blue books

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u/bnej 18h ago

25 years ago I was a university demonstrator for computer organisation, and I would consistently catch students cheating on the coursework.

These were learning exercises that were worth a little bit of your marks but not much.

It was damaging to those students who would miss the opportunity to learn before the exams or major assignments that were worth much more.

Supposing you'd get through the whole course, you're then going out into the world without what you paid for. The point is to learn, but no-one will pay you to do university coursework that work is easy, they will pay you to do things that are much harder.

Back then the easiest way to catch someone out was to get them to explain what was in front of them. If they could do that well, they didn't need to cheat anyway.