Researchers fool markers with AI-generated exam answers

Researchers at the University of Reading in England fooled their own professors by secretly submitting AI-generated exam answers that went undetected and got better grades than real students, writes Richard Adams for The Guardian.

The project created fake student identities to submit unedited answers generated by ChatGPT-4 in take-home online assessments for undergraduate courses. The university’s markers – who were not told about the project – flagged only one of the 33 entries, with the remaining AI answers receiving higher than average grades than the students.

The authors said their findings showed that AI processors such as ChatGPT were now passing the ‘Turing test’ – named after the computing pioneer Alan Turing – of being able to pass undetected by experienced judges. Billed as “the largest and most robust blind study of its kind” to investigate if human educators could detect AI-generated responses, the authors warned that it had major implications for how universities assess students.
Full report on The Guardian site