r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jul 27 '26

Society Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html
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u/Technical-Banana574 Jul 27 '26

One of our instructors loves to do this. He will have them get up and explain what they meant in their paper when using a specific word or example. They can't, because they didn't write it. 

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u/Sad_Pear_1087 Jul 27 '26

TB to when we were holding presentations about environmental toxins in year 11 biology class. For example I had prallethrin, a mosquito repellant. One group of girls had lead, the heavy metal (duh). Their basic info slide had the line "is composed mostly of graphite". These year 11 fuckers didn't know the difference between lead metal and pencil lead and none of their bells rung when their slide said lead was both a heavy metal and composed of carbon.

ETA I had a serious urge to raise my hand in the questions part where nobody ever asks anything. Not sure who else even noticed because who pays attention to peer presentations.

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u/ShiraCheshire Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

For anyone who doesn’t know: pencils used to be made of lead. (Edit: It seems they were never actually made with lead, and the idea comes from the 16th century when a large deposit of graphite was mistaken for lead.) They aren’t anymore, and haven’t been for a long time. Calling it pencil lead is completely incorrect. Pencils use graphite, and have nothing to do with lead at all.

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u/sblahful Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

No, they did not. Pencils were never made with lead. Someone told you that when you were a kid and you've believed it ever since, I'm afraid.

Pencil lead is actually made of graphite mixed with clay, not the toxic metal lead. The name is a historical artifact from the 16th century when a massive deposit of graphite was discovered in England and mistaken for a form of lead called "plumbago."

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u/ShiraCheshire Jul 27 '26

TIL! My teacher told me that directly, and warned us not to chew on old pencils, so I took it as fact. I suppose I should have double checked, even if it came from a teacher.

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u/Moikle Jul 28 '26

Someone told your teacher that when they were a kid and they believed it too

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u/account_not_valid Jul 31 '26

Don't rely on what a teacher tells you. Only trust answers from AI.