Culture Is ChatGPT killing higher education? - AI is creating a cheating utopia and universities don’t know how to respond.

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What’s the point of college if no one’s actually doing the work?

It’s not a rhetorical question. More and more students are not doing the work. They’re offloading their essays, their homework, even their exams, to AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude. These are not just study aids. They’re doing everything.

We’re living in a cheating utopia — and professors know it. It’s becoming increasingly common, and faculty are either too burned out or unsupported to do anything about it. And even if they wanted to do something, it’s not clear that there’s anything to be done at this point.

So what are we doing here?

James Walsh is a features writer for New York magazine’s Intelligencer and the author of the most unsettling piece I’ve read about the impact of AI on higher education.

Walsh spent months talking to students and professors who are living through this moment, and what he found isn’t just a story about cheating. It’s a story about ambivalence and disillusionment and despair. A story about what happens when technology moves faster than our institutions can adapt.

I invited Walsh onto The Gray Area to talk about what all of this means, not just for the future of college but the future of writing and thinking. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let’s talk about how students are cheating today. How are they using these tools? What’s the process look like?

It depends on the type of student, the type of class, the type of school you’re going to. Whether or not a student can get away with that is a different question, but there are plenty of students who are taking their prompt from their professor, copying and pasting it into ChatGPT and saying, “I need a four to five-page essay,” and copying and pasting that essay without ever reading it.

One of the funniest examples I came across is a number of professors are using this so-called Trojan horse method where they’re dropping non-sequiturs into their prompts. They mention broccoli or Dua Lipa, or they say something about Finland in the essay prompts just to see if people are copying and pasting the prompts into ChatGPT. If they are, ChatGPT or whatever LLM they’re using will say something random about broccoli or Dua Lipa.

Unless you’re incredibly lazy, it takes just a little effort to cover that up.

Every professor I spoke to said, “So many of my students are using AI and I know that so many more students are using it and I have no idea,” because it can essentially write 70 percent of your essay for you, and if you do that other 30 percent to cover all your tracks and make it your own, it can write you a pretty good essay.

And there are these platforms, these AI detectors, and there’s a big debate about how effective they are. They will scan an essay and assign some grade, say a 70 percent chance that this is AI-generated. And that’s really just looking at the language and deciding whether or not that language is created by an LLM.

But it doesn’t account for big ideas. It doesn’t catch the students who are using AI and saying, “What should I write this essay about?” And not doing the actual thinking themselves and then just writing. It’s like paint by numbers at that point.

Did you find that students are relating very differently to all of this? What was the general vibe you got?

It was a pretty wide perspective on AI. I spoke to a student at the University of Wisconsin who said, “I realized AI was a problem last fall, walking into the library and at least half of the students were using ChatGPT.” And it was at that moment that she started thinking about her classroom discussions and some of the essays she was reading.

The one example she gave that really stuck with me was that she was taking some psych class, and they were talking about attachment theories. She was like, “Attachment theory is something that we should all be able to talk about [from] our own personal experiences. We all have our own attachment theory. We can talk about our relationships with our parents. That should be a great class discussion. And yet I’m sitting here in class and people are referencing studies that we haven’t even covered in class, and it just makes for a really boring and unfulfilling class.” That was the realization for her that something is really wrong. So there are students like that.

And then there are students who feel like they have to use AI because if they’re not using AI, they’re at a disadvantage. Not only that, AI is going to be around no matter what for the rest of their lives. So they feel as if college, to some extent now, is about training them to use AI.

What’s the general professor’s perspective on this? They seem to all share something pretty close to despair.

Yes. Those are primarily the professors in writing-heavy classes or computer science classes. There were professors who I spoke to who actually were really bullish on AI. I spoke to one professor who doesn’t appear in the piece, but she is at UCLA and she teaches comparative literature, and used AI to create her entire textbook for this class this semester. And she says it’s the best class she’s ever had.

So I think there are some people who are optimistic, [but] she was an outlier in terms of the professors I spoke to. For the most part, professors were, yes, in despair. They don’t know how to police AI usage. And even when they know an essay is AI-generated, the recourse there is really thorny. If you’re going to accuse a student of using AI, there’s no real good way to prove it. And students know this, so they can always deny, deny, deny. And the sheer volume of AI-generated essays or paragraphs is overwhelming. So that, just on the surface level, is extremely frustrating and has a lot of professors down.

Now, if we zoom out and think also about education in general, this raises a lot of really uncomfortable questions for teachers and administrators about the value of each assignment and the value of the degree in general.

How many professors do you think are now just having AI write their lectures?

There’s been a little reporting on this. I don’t know how many are. I know that there are a lot of platforms that are advertising themselves or asking professors to use them more, not just to write lectures, but to grade papers, which of course, as I say in the piece, opens up the very real possibility that right now an AI is grading itself and offering comments on an essay that it wrote. And this is pretty widespread stuff. There are plenty of universities across the country offering teachers this technology. And students love to talk about catching their professors using AI.

I’ve spoken to another couple of professors who are like, I’m nearing retirement, so it’s not my problem, and good luck figuring it out, younger generation. I just don’t think people outside of academia realize what a seismic change is coming. This is something that we’re all going to have to deal with professionally.

And it’s happening much, much faster than anyone anticipated. I spoke with somebody who works on education at Anthropic, who said, “We expected students to be early adopters and use it a lot. We did not realize how many students would be using it and how often they would be using it.”

Is it your sense that a lot of university administrators are incentivized to not look at this too closely, that it’s better for business to shove it aside?

I do think there’s a vein of AI optimism among a certain type of person, a certain generation, who saw the tech boom and thought, I missed out on that wave, and now I want to adopt. I want to be part of this new wave, this future, this inevitable future that’s coming. They want to adopt the technology and aren’t really picking up on how dangerous it might be.

I used to teach at a university. I still know a lot of people in that world. A lot of them tell me that they feel very much on their own with this, that the administrators are pretty much just saying, Hey, figure it out. And I think it’s revealing that university admins were quickly able, during Covid, for instance, to implement drastic institutional changes to respond to that, but they’re much more content to let the whole AI thing play out.

I think they were super responsive to Covid because it was a threat to the bottom line. They needed to keep the operation running. AI, on the other hand, doesn’t threaten the bottom line in that way, or at least it doesn’t yet. AI is a massive, potentially extinction-level threat to the very idea of higher education, but they seem more comfortable with a degraded education as long as the tuition checks are still cashing. Do you think I’m being too harsh?


I genuinely don’t think that’s too harsh. I think administrators may not fully appreciate the power of AI and exactly what’s happening in the classroom and how prevalent it is. I did speak with many professors who go to administrators or even just older teachers, TAs going to professors and saying, This is a problem.

I spoke to one TA at a writing course at Iowa who went to his professor, and the professor said, “Just grade it like it was any other paper.” I think they’re just turning a blind eye to it. And that is one of the ways AI is exposing the rot underneath education.

It’s this system that hasn’t been updated in forever. And in the case of the US higher ed system, it’s like, yeah, for a long time it’s been this transactional experience. You pay X amount of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, and you get your degree. And what happens in between is not as important.

The universities, in many cases, also have partnerships with AI companies, right?

Right. And what you said about universities can also be said about AI companies. For the most part, these are companies or companies within nonprofits that are trying to capture customers. One of the more dystopian moments was when we were finishing this story, getting ready to completely close it, and I got a push alert that was like, “Google is letting parents know that they have created a chatbot for children under [thirteen years old].” And it was kind of a disturbing experience, but they are trying to capture these younger customers and build this loyalty.

There’s been reporting from the Wall Street Journal on OpenAI and how they have been sitting on an AI that would be really, really effective at essentially watermarking their output. And they’ve been sitting on it, they have not released it, and you have to wonder why. And you have to imagine they know that students are using it, and in terms of building loyalty, an AI detector might not be the best thing for their brand.

This is a good time to ask the obligatory question, Are we sure we’re not just old people yelling at clouds here? People have always panicked about new technologies. Hell, Socrates panicked about the written word. How do we know this isn’t just another moral panic?

I think there’s a lot of different ways we could respond to that. It’s not a generational moral panic. This is a tool that’s available, and it’s available to us just as it’s available to students. Society and our culture will decide what the morals are. And that is changing, and the way that the definition of cheating is changing. So who knows? It might be a moral panic toda,y and it won’t be in a year.

However, I think somebody like Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is one of the people who said, “This is a calculator for words.” And I just don’t really understand how that is compatible with other statements he’s made about AI potentially being lights out for humanity or statements made by people at an Anthropic about the power of AI to potentially be a catastrophic event for humans. And these are the people who are closest and thinking about it the most, of course.

I have spoken to some people who say there is a possibility, and I think there are people who use AI who would back this up, that we’ve maxed out the AI’s potential to supplement essays or writing. That it might not get much better than it is now. And I think that’s a very long shot, one that I would not want to bank on.

Is your biggest fear at this point that we are hurtling toward a post-literate society? I would argue, if we are post-literate, then we’re also post-thinking.

It’s a very scary thought that I try not to dwell in — the idea that my profession and what I’m doing is just feeding the machine, that my most important reader now is a robot, and that there’s going to be fewer and fewer readers is really scary, not just because of subscriptions, but because, as you said, that means fewer and fewer people thinking and engaging with these ideas.

I think ideas can certainly be expressed in other mediums and that’s exciting, but I don’t think anybody who’s paid attention to the way technology has shaped teen brains over the past decade and a half is thinking, Yeah, we need more of that. And the technology we’re talking about now is orders of magnitude more powerful than the algorithms on Instagram.

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Yes and no.

ChatGPT is just the final blow on a list of issues facing colleges and higher education that have been slowly killing the entire field for decades.

It is the final form of the rat race where the point of higher education is not to learn but to get a degree.
 
So having a sibling who has just finished her final year, use of this is rampant with essays. Problem is the current plagiarism systems is an inability to pick up on AI generated content.

More concerning is the use and misuse of it in professional settings. Bit old but Bong lawyers got caught using it to look up cases and then the lead lawyer doesn’t check the source first. Also had/know people who’s clients come in to “help them” by looking up cases that are bogus.

 
In a way, yes.
LLMS will soon be able to make completely tailored education programs for every skill imaginable, with infinite patience,
The state will only be necessary to actually examine those skills and give out degrees.

Total Professor and Lecturer Death is coming soon.
Everybody claimed the Internet was going to do this too but it didn't happen and online colleges or degrees are basically considered a joke. Higher education is controlled by a state/university cartel and largely protected from market forces.
 
Everybody claimed the Internet was going to do this too but it didn't happen and online colleges or degrees are basically considered a joke. Higher education is controlled by a state/university cartel and largely protected from market forces.
Please let me dream.

But in all honesty, this will just kill higher ed unless they do some drastic changes. We're talking a return to bluebook written exams, oral exams, essays, and whatnot. But that'd be very very anti-DEI and I don't know if they want to do that.

I'm predicting 10-20 years of absolute stupidity as they adapt stuff.
 
Cheaters are killing it.... enjoy having to submit 3 typed rough drafts along with the final draft , and papers taking 5 times as long to write because cheaters just couldn't help themselves.
The system killed itself, people using LLM's to get their degrees are a natural result of the system that they're expected to deal with. If you're going to make a McDegree required, McMaster preferred for every job more complex than cleaning toilets don't be surprised when the victims you force to waste tens of thousands of dollars and half a decade of their lives do whatever they can to swindle your bullshit system.
 
Yes and no.

ChatGPT is just the final blow on a list of issues facing colleges and higher education that have been slowly killing the entire field for decades.

It is the final form of the rat race where the point of higher education is not to learn but to get a degree.
I can't blame people wanting to cut the bullshit just to get a degree and job. Especially if it's kids who grew up on "oh, you can get ANY job you want if you work hard enough, like being a historian is a job that'll put bread on the table!" but realize their BA in History is absolutely going to be useless (beyond being 'just' a BA degree where you can at least still get any job that just so happens to require any kind of BA) in this housing market and economy. So many in this young generation were raised up on that mindset, only to realize half of the degrees they are doing will not get them any useful jobs (lmao at those who do "Gender Studies") but it's too late to turn back so may as well just blitz to the end and get a job with whatever degree you can muster.
 
I think they were super responsive to Covid because it was a threat to the bottom line. They needed to keep the operation running. AI, on the other hand, doesn’t threaten the bottom line in that way, or at least it doesn’t yet. AI is a massive, potentially extinction-level threat to the very idea of higher education, but they seem more comfortable with a degraded education as long as the tuition checks are still cashing. Do you think I’m being too harsh?
Shocked it took him like 2400 words to reach that conclusion. None of these universities give a shit so long as the money keeps coming in.
 
doing the work
doing the work

This is just what happens when higher education is built in support of a bunch of pretend make-work USAid email jobs so affluent suburban kids can sit at a desk all day and amass consumer debt.

I've been around higher education leeches and "white collar" parasites in the real world who use the term "doing the work" as if it makes them virtuous. No, sorry, you're a slave to the screen and some software doing stuff nobody cares about.

the point of higher education is not to learn but to get a degree.

You're right. I'm not even sure if it was ever actually about learning in my lifetime. It's about glazing liberal professors and crapping out projects with zero individuality or critical thinking involved. I'm sorry, "turn in a 20 page paper in APA 19 format with citations" never made anyone want to learn. Gotta get that sweet undergraduate tuition money so the army of administrators can get their gibs.

Burn the whole thing down. Go to trade school kids.
 
What killed higher education was jobs no longer being guaranteed to those who graduate.
If you are focusing on anything that isn't related to STEM or Law, you're NGMI, unfortunately.
You're even better off with a trade school because that can land you practical money-making jobs.
If you pursue a degree in say philosophy, history, basically any other subject, you're fucked. It's not even anyone's faults. Children were raised on the mindset of "you can support yourself financially with any job, only do stuff you're PASSIONATE ON!" but sadly that is no longer the case...
 
What’s the point of college if no one’s actually doing the work?

lol. the fag who wrote this article is outing himself as a fucking nerd who's dumb enough to believe that college is a meritocracy. bro, all that extra work you did staying up late at night while your other group members fucked off went straight into the garbage. your meticulously written term paper got a whole ten seconds of attention from the professor who ran it through the plaigarism detector, checked it off, and instantly forgot about it. all the nerd shit you did while your much cooler classmates were out partying, making friends, and getting laid was a complete waste. the guy who skated through every class faking his ass off through every assignment is probably your boss at Vox now, and he's sending you a reminder that your article is due TONIGHT from the penthouse suite in Fiji his friend got him for a week, while you complain to your wife's boyfriend that you're the only one who does any work. you failed to understand the rules, you lost a game you didn't even know you were playing, and now your busybody ass is grousing about the next generation of winners, who rightfully give zero fucks about your gay assignments, and will go on to do much cooler shit than you while being half your age. that's why you're a columnist and a college professor, two of the lamest and most useless professions in the world.
 
Everybody claimed the Internet was going to do this too but it didn't happen and online colleges or degrees are basically considered a joke. Higher education is controlled by a state/university cartel and largely protected from market forces.
Different situation. In the beginning, the internet did not nearly the information it has now, and the learning process of that information was still the same as if just studying the academic literature. It was non-interactive, could not explain.

An LLM not only has more information than any Professor, it can be used at any time, can perfectly tailor a course for you, test your progress, etc.
It can spoonfeed you, make the topic an digestible short audiobook for repeated listening...

It would be like an all-knowing, free tutor in your phone.

Classical education just can't compete with that.
It will still have some relevancy, but only on the higher levels, not the basics.
 
It would be like an all-knowing, free tutor in your phone.
You're missing the point. How good LLMs are is immaterial because the cartel has a vested interest in maintaining the cartel.

People don't go to college because the education is unmatched anywhere else. People go to college because they are the gatekeepers of professional credentials. It's their way or the highway.
 
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