Ivy League economics professor suspects half his students cheat using AI

Roberto Serrano, a tenured economics professor at Brown University, believes that at least half of his students cheated on a recent take-home exam by using artificial intelligence. Serrano, who has taught at the Ivy League institution for 34 years, detailed his suspicions in an essay published in The Free Press.

“

The average grade was 96, with 40 students obtaining a perfect score.

During the summer semester, Serrano allowed his students to take the midterm exam at home in a closed-book format. This decision followed student anxiety about being on campus after a Dec. 13 shooting at Brown. However, upon receiving the exam results through the online portal, Serrano found the scores "immediately suspicious." The average grade was 96, with 40 students achieving perfect scores. This contrasted sharply with previous midterms, which typically saw averages between 65 and 80.

“

compared to a midterm average ranging between 65 and 80 in previous years

Serrano detected irregularities in many exams, noting that large portions of text matched answers he received when submitting the exam questions to ChatGPT. To investigate further, he informed the class of his suspicions about widespread AI use but chose not to nullify the results immediately. He stated that if the final exam's grade distribution mirrored the midterm's, he would accept the midterm grades. Otherwise, he would void the midterm and reweigh the final, which would be administered in-person and closed-book.

“

matched the answers I received when I provided the exam questions to ChatGPT.

The Brown Daily Herald, the university's newspaper, reported that patterns of cheating and questionable exam scores are common in Brown's economics classes. Students cited pressure to perform and busy schedules as reasons for cheating. The school's associate dean of the College for the Academic Code suggested that students often make "split-second decisions" due to "immense external or internal pressure." However, Serrano refutes these claims, arguing that competitive environments do not excuse cheating, especially since he provided students with 11 hours to complete the exam.

“

Students who violate the academic code are almost never doing it from a malicious place. Generally speaking, it’s a split-second decision that comes from a place of trying to handle immense external or internal pressure.