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Journalism of Courage
The next time you turn to an AI tool to check tests, remember that they may not offer much help after all. Former OpenAI researcher Andrej Karpathy has urged educators to stop keeping watch for AI-generated homework. According to the famed computer scientist, AI detection tools are broken. He strongly believes that grading should be done in the conventional manner.
“You will never be able to detect the use of AI in homework. Full stop. All “detectors” of AI imo don’t really work, can be defeated in various ways, and are in principle doomed to fail. You have to assume that any work done outside the classroom has used AI,” he wrote in a long post on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
The scientists said that he wants students to be able to use AI, as it is here to stay. He went on to cite the use of calculators as an example of a historically disruptive technology. “…school teaches you how to do all the basic math & arithmetic so that you can in principle do it by hand, even if calculators are pervasive and greatly speed up work in practical settings.”
He added that with a calculator one knows what it is doing for them, so in case it gives a wrong answer, they should be able to notice it, ‘gut check it’, or verify it in some other way. Karpathy believes that this ability to verify is particularly important in the case of AI, which is currently a ‘lot more fallible’ in a variety of ways compared to calculators.
Karpathy revealed that a lot of the evaluation settings remain at the teacher’s discretion and involve creative design space with no tools, cheat sheets, open books, provided AI responses, direct internet/AI access, etc. He essentially said that education’s goal in the AI age should be for students to be proficient in the use of AI and also be able to exist without it.
Karpathy’s claims come at a critical time with AI adoption accelerating in schools, perhaps faster than they can prepare, especially in the absence of a clear roadmap.
