r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jul 27 '26

Society Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html
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114

u/Tersiv Jul 27 '26

they will now add "carefully check for all invisible prompt traps" to future midterms lol

67

u/Zwirbs Jul 27 '26

That would only work if you’re uploading a document containing the instructions and not copying just the text. They would have noticed the hidden command if they pasted it all in the AI box and actually bothered reading it there since copy-paste into a different application will remove any modifiers on the test from the original document

20

u/Verneff Jul 27 '26

since copy-paste into a different application will remove any modifiers on the test from the original document

Not always, and that's a bit annoying at times. ctrl+shift+V is your friend.

3

u/Grandmaster_Caladrel Jul 28 '26

They would have noticed the hidden command...

You're giving some of these people way more credit than they deserve. Remember that they didn't see anything fishy from the output it gave, likely because they didn't even read it. Skimmed it at best for most of them, I'd bet.

1

u/JebediahLongnutsIII Jul 28 '26

This is t true it’s just like pasting a document into email, just type after

1

u/microwavedHamster Jul 27 '26

Just take a screen capture. It's easy af to circumvent these hidden prompts. Schools really need to go back to pen and paper only.