The rapid spread of generative AI tools has exposed deep vulnerabilities in conventional methods of academic assessment. This challenge came into sharp focus for me when I found evidence of widespread unauthorized use of artificial intelligence in an examination for my course on welfare economics and social-choice theory at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, last semester.
Some students were reluctant to return to the classroom after a campus shooting earlier in the academic year, so I administered the midterm test as a take-home exam for the first time in nearly two decades of teaching the course. Although it was more demanding than previous exams, the average score was 96%, far above the course’s historical range of roughly 65–80%. Suspecting AI-enabled cheating, I held the final test of the course as an in-person, closed-book examination. The average score plummeted to 48.6%. Furthermore, several students either dropped the course or did not sit the final exam.
Why universities need to radically rethink exams in the age of AI
The shocking aspect of this episode was not that cheating seems to have occurred on the take-home exam, but how prevalent it appeared to be. Universities have struggled to respond adequately to this challenge. But they cannot afford to ignore it — the very credibility of learning and assessment is at stake.
Two things require immediate attention: restoring a culture of academic integrity and adapting student learning and assessment methods for the age of AI.
The prevalence of cheating at universities is sustained, at least in part, by the reluctance of academic leaders to confront it decisively. When university leaders fail to defend academic integrity unequivocally, they help to create a culture in which cheating is normalized. My own experience and the countless messages I have received from faculty members at other institutions suggest that administrators often respond to evidence of extensive cheating with hesitation or denial. In some cases, this seems to stem from a desire to protect the institution’s reputation and ‘market value’. Yet, it misunderstands the factors that ultimately give a university its standing: high standards, a strong work ethic and genuine academic excellence.
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