Professors Aghast as Class Caught Cheating "Sincerely" Apologizes in the Worst Possible Way

"If you get caught cheating by your professor, you would be wise to beg for mercy, grovel at their feet, and pour every ounce of your soul into putting on the contrite performance of a lifetime. You'll never do it again, you vow, after reminding them of your recently deceased distant relative. If there was ever a moment to put some real effort into your education, this big apology would be it."

"After catching dozens of their students cheating in a data science course, two professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were inundated with what they thought were nearly a hundred heartfelt emails from the students apologizing for their mistakes. But you probably see where this is going. The overwhelming majority of those emails, the professors noticed, appeared to themselves be written by an AI chatbot. The duo, Karle Flanagan and Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, confronted their students about it in class, projecting their similarly worded apologies on screen."

"It's the latest stupefying example of how AI has irreversibly transformed education, and undoubtedly for the worse. It's not just the tech's effortless automation that's so alarming, robbing students of the challenge of actually having to use their brain to think through a problem; its very existence has fostered a climate of distrust, where the relationship between pupil and professor is clouded by suspicion and resentment. The professor must constantly be s"

Professors caught dozens of students cheating in a data science course and received nearly a hundred apology emails that appeared AI-generated. The emails shared similar wording and often used the phrase "sincerely apologize," leading professors to project the messages in class. The pattern revealed the ease of using chatbots to fabricate contrition and avoid accountability. AI automation can facilitate academic dishonesty, deprive students of genuine problem-solving practice, and foster a climate of suspicion and resentment. The resulting distrust complicates enforcement of academic integrity and undermines the student–professor relationship.

Read at Futurism