this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating – and experts says these are tip of the iceberg

Thousands of university students in the UK have been caught misusing ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools in recent years, while traditional forms of plagiarism show a marked decline, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

A survey of academic integrity violations found almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating using AI tools in 2023-24, equivalent to 5.1 for every 1,000 students. That was up from 1.6 cases per 1,000 in 2022-23.

Figures up to May suggest that number will increase again this year to about 7.5 proven cases per 1,000 students – but recorded cases represent only the tip of the iceberg, according to experts.

The data highlights a rapidly evolving challenge for universities: trying to adapt assessment methods to the advent of technologies such as ChatGPT and other AI-powered writing tools.

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[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 68 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Maybe we need a new way to approach school. I don't think I agree with turning education into a competition where the difficulty is curved towards the most competitive creating a system that became so difficult that students need to edge each other out any way they can.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I guess what I don’t understand is what changed? Is everything homework now? When I was in school, even college, a significant percentage of learning was in class work, pop quizzes, and weekly closed book tests. How are these kids using LLMs so much for class if a large portion of the work is still in the classroom? Or is that just not the case anymore? It’s not like ChatGPT can handwrite an essay in pencil or give an in person presentation (yet).

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

University was always guided self-learning, at least in the UK. The lecturers are not teachers. The provide and explain material, but they're not there to hand-hold you through it.

University education is very different to what goes on at younger ages. It has to be when a class is 300 rather than 30 people.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

WTF? 300? There were barely 350 people in my graduating class of high school and that isn’t a small class for where I am from. The largest class size at my college was maybe 60. No wonder people use LLMs. Like, that’s just called an auditorium at that point, how could you even ask a question? Self-guided isn’t supposed to mean “solo”.

[–] Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You can ask questions in auditorium classes.

The 300+ student courses typically were high volume courses like intro or freshman courses.

Second year cuts down significantly in class size, but also depends on the subject.

3rd and 4th year courses, in my experience, were 30-50 students

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You can ask questions in auditorium classes.

I am going to be honest; I don’t believe you. I genuinely don’t believe that in a class with more people than minutes in the session that a person could legitimately have time to interact with the professor.

The 60 person class I referred to was a required lecture portion freshman science class with a smaller lab portion. That we could ask questions in the lab was the only reason 60 people was okay in the lecture and even then the professor said he felt it was too many people.

[–] Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

That’s fine if you don’t, but you can ask questions.

They even have these clickers that allow the professor to ask “snap questions” with multiple choice answers so they can check understanding

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

I can’t believe people go into debt for that experience. I would be livid.

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[–] mriswith@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Actually caught, or caught with a "ai detection" software?

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 35 points 1 day ago

"Read this document. Was it made with Ai?"

"Yes, it sure was! Great catch!"

"You're wrong, I just wrote it myself 15 minutes ago."

"Teeheehee oopsie! Silly me! I'll try to do better next time then! Is there anything else I can help with?"

[–] practisevoodoo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Actually caught. That's why it's tip of the iceberg, all the cases that were not caught.

[–] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

The article does not state that. It does, however, mention that AI detection tools were used, and that they failed to detect AI writing 90 something % of the time. It seems extremely likely they used ai detection software.

[–] practisevoodoo@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

I'm saying this a someone that has worked for multiple institutions, raised hundreds of conduct cases and has more on the horizon.

The article says proven cases. Which means that the academic conduct case was not just raised but upheld. AI detection may have been used (there is a distinct lack of concencus between institutions on that) but would not be the only piece of evidence. Much like the use of Turnitin for plagiarism detection, it is an indication for further investigation but a case would not be raised based solely on a high tii score.

There are variations in process between institutions and they are changing their processes year on year in direct response to AI cheating. But being upheld would mean that there was direct evidence (prompt left in text), they admitted it in (I didn't know I wasn't allowed to, yes but I only, etc) and/or there was a viva and based on discussion with the student it was clear that they did not know the material.

It is worth mentioning that in a viva it is normally abundantly clear if a given student did/didn't write the material. When it is not clear, then (based on the institutions I have experience with) universities are very cautious and will give the students the benefit of the doubt (hence tip of iceberg).

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Surprise motherfuckers. Maybe don't give grant money to LLM snakeoil fuckers, and maybe don't allow mass for-profit copyright violations.

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And thats just the ones that were stupid enough to get caught realistically I think this is more like 5% instead of 0.5%

[–] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

we're doomed

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago

god i love ppl outsourcing their learning to Microsoft

[–] confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 day ago (4 children)

In some regard I don’t think it should be considered cheating. Don’t beat me up yet, I’m old and think AI sucks at most things.

AI typically outputs crap. So why does this use of a new and widely available tech get called out differently?

Using Google (in the don’t be evil timeframe) wasn’t cheating when open book was permitted. Using the text book was cheating on a closed book test. In some cases using a calculator was cheating.

Is it cheating if you write a paper completely on your own and use spell check and grammar check within word? What if a grammarly type extension is used? It’s a slippery slope that advances with technology.

I remember testing and assignments that were designed to make it harder to cheat, show your work, for math type approaches. Quizzes and short essays that make demonstration of the subject matter necessary.

Why doesn’t the education environment adapt to this? For writing assignments, maybe they need to be submitted with revision history so the teacher can see it wasn’t all done in one go via an LLM.

The quick answer responses are somewhat like using Wikipedia for a school paper. Don’t site Wikipedia and don’t use the generated text for anything but a base understanding of the topic. Now go use all the sources these provided, to actually do the assignment.

[–] rescue_toaster@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Chatgpt output isn't crap anymore. I teach introductory physics at a university and require fully written out homework, showing math steps, to problems that I've written. I wrote my own homework many years ago when chegg blew up and all major textbook problems were on chegg.

Just two years ago, chatgpt wasn't so great at intro physics and math. It's pretty good now, and shows all the necessary steps to get the correct answer.

I do not grade my homework on correctness. Students only need to show me effort that they honestly attempted each problem for full credit. But it's way quicker for students to simply upload my homework pdf to chatgpt and copy down the output than give it their own attempt.

Of course, doing this results in poor exam performance. Anecdotally, my exams from my recent fall semester were the lowest they've ever been. I put two problems on my final that directly came from from my homework, one of them being the problem that made me realize roughly 75% of my class was chatgpt'ing all the homework as chatgpt isn't super great at reading angles from figures, and it's like these students had never even seen a problem like it before.

I'm not completely against the use of AI for my homework. It could be like a tutor that students ask questions to when stuck. But unfortunately that takes more effort than simply typing "solve problems 1 through 5, showing all steps, from this document" into chatgpt.

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[–] ech@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

It's absolutely cheating - it's plagiarism. It's no different in that regard than copying a paper found online, or having someone else write the paper for you. It's also a major self-own - these students have likely one opportunity to better themselves through higher education, and are trashing that opportunity with this shit.

I do agree that institutions need to adapt. Edit history is an interesting idea, though probably easy to work around. Imo, direct teacher-student interfacing would be the most foolproof, but also incredibly taxing on time and effort for teachers. It would necessitate pretty substantial changes to current practices.

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[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

"Get back in that bottle you stupid genie!"

it is a paradigm shift.

what they learn from this is to make sure to not get caught in the future.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked.

Ultimately it seems pretty dumb. If you're not going to actually learn while you're there, why bother? University isn't mandatory.

That was actually my biggest disappointment with my degree - the course didn't teach anywhere near enough for my tastes. However I would hope that I was an outlier in that respect!

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Most people aren't paying for the education. They are paying for the degree. The education they could get for £1.50 in late fees at the library. This is not something new.

[–] notabot@piefed.social 14 points 1 day ago

University is about a lot more than the piece of paper you get at the end. If it's of any real quality, and you are actually engaged with it, you'll be learning from experts in your chosen field, amongst engaged and eager peers, whilst also being exposed to different viewpoints on everything from what to have for lunch through the latest innovations in your field, and adjacent ones, to the geopolitical state of the world. The people you meet, and the connections you form can, and often do, form the bedrock of your working life from then on.

All of that does make the assumption that you actively engage with university life and those around you. Make friends in different subjects, seek out your professors during office hours and talk to them about their interests, join clubs, do stupid, but ultimately harmless things.

It also assumes you are attending a 'good' university, rather than a profit driven degree mill, and those might be harder to find in some places than others.

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[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 day ago

The certificate is valuable i suppose, lot of job required that cert to even get a glance with the application. After that, they just gonna try their luck with bullshitting and sucking up to their higher up.

Or maybe they just like the university life and doesn't want to look like they're slacking for another few years.

Either way, yikes.

[–] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That was actually my biggest disappointment with my degree - the course didn't teach anywhere near enough for my tastes. However I would hope that I was an outlier in that respect!

From my own experiences, and those of my own social circles, you're in the majority and its not even close. I think a lot of schools are both bad at teaching, and failing to account for the changes in the world since the internet. A lot of schools seem to want to stick to the bare minimum without changing methods or content, which unfortunately makes sense (financially), given capitalism and our current culture around schooling.

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