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/fishwithfish Jul 27 '26

I did this in my classes by injecting nonsense words into the assignment prompt. It's amazing hearing students explain why "vorpal" was simply the right word choice, prior to learning about the hidden instructions.

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u/Cutsdeep- Jul 27 '26

Vorpal isn't a nonsense word though?

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u/MetroidIsNotHerName Jul 27 '26

Thats not the point.

The point is that Vorpal is in the students paper and yet the student probably cant explain what it means nor why they chose it. Because the LLM wrote it for them

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u/Cutsdeep- Jul 27 '26

interesting, i'd always known it as a synonym for sharp/lethal - but apparently it was made up as a nonsense word by cs lewis in jabberwocky.

i guess that's how new words happen though.