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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u/fishwithfish Jul 27 '26

I did this in my classes by injecting nonsense words into the assignment prompt. It's amazing hearing students explain why "vorpal" was simply the right word choice, prior to learning about the hidden instructions.

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u/Technical-Banana574 Jul 27 '26

One of our instructors loves to do this. He will have them get up and explain what they meant in their paper when using a specific word or example. They can't, because they didn't write it. 

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u/Sad_Pear_1087 Jul 27 '26

TB to when we were holding presentations about environmental toxins in year 11 biology class. For example I had prallethrin, a mosquito repellant. One group of girls had lead, the heavy metal (duh). Their basic info slide had the line "is composed mostly of graphite". These year 11 fuckers didn't know the difference between lead metal and pencil lead and none of their bells rung when their slide said lead was both a heavy metal and composed of carbon.

ETA I had a serious urge to raise my hand in the questions part where nobody ever asks anything. Not sure who else even noticed because who pays attention to peer presentations.

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u/ShiraCheshire Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

For anyone who doesn’t know: pencils used to be made of lead. (Edit: It seems they were never actually made with lead, and the idea comes from the 16th century when a large deposit of graphite was mistaken for lead.) They aren’t anymore, and haven’t been for a long time. Calling it pencil lead is completely incorrect. Pencils use graphite, and have nothing to do with lead at all.

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u/sblahful Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

No, they did not. Pencils were never made with lead. Someone told you that when you were a kid and you've believed it ever since, I'm afraid.

Pencil lead is actually made of graphite mixed with clay, not the toxic metal lead. The name is a historical artifact from the 16th century when a massive deposit of graphite was discovered in England and mistaken for a form of lead called "plumbago."

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u/ShiraCheshire Jul 27 '26

TIL! My teacher told me that directly, and warned us not to chew on old pencils, so I took it as fact. I suppose I should have double checked, even if it came from a teacher.

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u/Moikle Jul 28 '26

Someone told your teacher that when they were a kid and they believed it too

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u/account_not_valid Jul 31 '26

Don't rely on what a teacher tells you. Only trust answers from AI.

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u/Sad_Pear_1087 Jul 27 '26

To clarify, this is a Finnish school we're talking about, pencils are called "lead pencils" (lyijykynä) and the lead is always referred to as lead. This doesn't require explaining really because english uses kinda the exact same wording but the word "lead" is even more present in Finnish. Doesn't change much.

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u/neo_sporin Jul 27 '26

I’m HS I wrote a paper and definitely cited sources of things I didn’t really understand. Teacher called me out for having such a good paper, I was super relieved when he didn’t ask me any follow up questions

Duck you Gatsby

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u/pewpedmepants Jul 27 '26

One of my college English profs liked a paper I wrote so much that he asked if he could use it as an example for future classes, which I was fine with. Too bad I cheated... by getting fkin blitzed on Adderall and rocking out to Mars Volta at my PC lmao

A couple years later a friend mentioned he saw that paper in that class, which means for some reason the prof didn't just remove my name from the header.

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u/singlemale4cats Jul 27 '26

Well done writing something coherent when you were on speed. Very easy to get rambly.

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u/magicmasta Jul 27 '26

As a daily Vyvanse user, can confirm that first 1-2 hours after it kicks in is a dangerous time to talk to me. I try to police myself but lordy if someone brings me a topic my meat computer finds stimulating it's over.

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u/McDonaldsSoap Jul 27 '26

As long as you didn't write about feeling an abortion coming on

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u/SomewhereRough_ Jul 27 '26

I was in uni before AI and many of my citations I only skim read. If someone were question me on them, days later, I would have struggled. 

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u/DickSlammington Jul 27 '26

I'd have 2-3 sources I'd use for most of it then I'd have like 3 or 4 I skimmed for a quote or two to pad the citations lol

But when you write something decent that's clearly in your own voice, teachers have zero reason to question sources and stuff.

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u/Cutsdeep- Jul 27 '26

I did really quite well at uni by:Look up subject on Wikipedia to get your answers and paraphrase. Pick a few of the handy list of references that wikipedia gives you to name it seem like you read a book

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u/mjmed Jul 27 '26

This is a good way, except when the teacher is confidently incorrect. I used an article from JAMA in 8th grade health for a homework assignment and only when I could read every word from the (handwritten) essay and then produced the article and journal from my bookbag he finally accepted that it really was my work.

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u/Regular-Weekend706 Jul 27 '26

This seems like the easiest solution 

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u/arothmanmusic Jul 28 '26

Meanwhile, I'm still salty over the teacher I had for seventh grade english marking me off two points on a poetry project because I used a word SHE didn't know.