So, I read this thing – some big brains, doctors no less, decided to enroll a chatbot in a Master’s program. Not just any program, mind you, but one about health administration. You know, the folks who decide how many forms you need to fill out before they even look at your tonsils. And this chatbot, this glorified auto-complete, it aced it. Got an A. Graduated top of the class. Nobody noticed. Not the professors, not the other students. Nobody.
Now, they’re all in a tizzy about academic integrity and the downfall of higher education. Well, of course they are! They’re worried someone might learn something the wrong way. As if there’s a right way to learn that it’s easier to let a robot do your homework than actually crack a book. And here’s the real head-scratcher: these researchers, they didn’t even try to trick the system. They just fed the chatbot’s answers into the machine, no fancy stuff. Just like any other student, except this student runs on algorithms instead of anxiety and bad coffee.
The university, bless their hearts, they didn’t have any AI detectors. None. It’s like they’re handing out degrees based on the honor system in a room full of professional liars. Or robots. Or robot liars. I mean, what did they expect? That a chatbot would get a conscience and confess? “Oh, sorry, Professor, I can’t accept this A. I didn’t really learn anything. I just processed data and regurgitated it in a way that conforms to your grading rubric.”
But wait, it gets better. The chatbot got a 99.36. Higher than the class average, which, and get this, was a 97.70. The median was 98.53. That means more than half the class was pulling down better than a 98.5. Now, I’m no math whiz, but that sounds like a curve that’s been inflated more than a parade balloon. Either everyone in that class is a genius, or the professors are handing out As like they’re participation trophies.
So, what are the options? One, the course is easier than a coloring book. Just show up, breathe in the general direction of the computer screen, and bam, you’re a Master of… something. Two, everyone’s cheating. Not just a little, but wholesale, industrial-grade cheating. And why not? If a chatbot can do it, why bother with the charade of learning? Three, grade inflation is so out of control that a C is now considered a moral failing.
And here’s the thing that really keeps me up at night – they’re worried about the wrong problem. They’re wringing their hands about AI cheating, but the real issue is that the whole system is rigged. It’s a Catch-22, see? You need the degree to get the job, but the degree is so worthless that you can have a computer get it for you, and nobody will even notice. They call it higher education, but it sounds more like a high-stakes game of make-believe.
The professors, they’re not teaching, they’re just checking boxes. The students, they’re not learning, they’re just playing the game. And the chatbot? It’s just exposing the whole thing for the farce it is. It’s the sane one in the asylum, except the sane one is a machine and the asylum is a university.
They say education is the key to a better future. But what happens when the key is mass-produced, made of plastic, and fits every lock? What happens when the future is just a simulation, and we’re all just NPCs in someone else’s poorly designed video game?
And you know what the real punchline is? This was a course on health administration. The people who are supposed to be running our hospitals, making sure we don’t die from preventable diseases or paperwork errors, and they can’t even tell the difference between a human student and a robot that probably thinks Hippocrates is a type of ancient Greek monster. These are the folks making life and death decisions, and their training is so rigorous a chatbot can breeze through it.
It’s enough to make you want to join the Army. At least there, the absurdity is out in the open. You know the enemy is trying to kill you. You know the bureaucracy is insane. You know the whole thing is a pointless, bloody mess. But in academia? It’s all hidden behind a veneer of respectability and tradition. It’s a different kind of war, a war of attrition against common sense. And the chatbots? They’re just the latest weapon in the arsenal of absurdity.
So, what’s the solution? I don’t know. Maybe we should just give every chatbot a diploma and be done with it. Let them run the world. It can’t be any worse than what we’ve got now. At least they’d be honest about their intentions. They wouldn’t pretend to care about things like “ethics” or “critical thinking.” They’d just optimize for efficiency, even if that efficiency means turning us all into cogs in a machine of their own design.
Or maybe, and this is a long shot, maybe we should start valuing actual learning again. Maybe we should make education about something more than just getting a piece of paper that says you’re qualified to do something you’ve never actually done. Maybe we should teach people how to think, not just how to answer multiple-choice questions.
But that would require effort. And honesty. And a willingness to admit that the whole system is broken. And who has time for that when there are papers to grade, even on a Saturday like today when it’s just after 6:30 a.m.? Especially when you can just let the chatbot do it for you.
Source: An AI Chatbot Took A Graduate Course And Got An A. No One Noticed.