Decoder with Nilay Patel Is ChatGPT killing higher education?
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Aug 25, 2025 In a captivating discussion, journalist James Walsh, who writes for New York Magazine's Intelligencer, delves into the disruptive impact of AI tools like ChatGPT on higher education. He explores the alarming rise of a cheating culture among students, sharing personal anecdotes and insights from academia. Walsh raises critical questions about academic integrity, the evolving role of professors, and the challenge of balancing innovation with educational value. With thought-provoking commentary, he highlights the need for universities to adapt to the rapid advancements in technology.
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AI Is Reshaping Academic Work
- AI is enabling students to offload essays, homework, and exams and is changing what academic work looks like.
- James Walsh argues this shift creates a 'cheating utopia' that challenges the purpose of higher education.
Classroom Uses And Failures
- Students use ChatGPT for brainstorming, outlining, note-taking, summarizing textbooks, and coding assignments.
- A Berkeley professor said many CS students use AI on take-home work and then fail in-class tests on the same problems.
Trojan Prompts And Blind Submissions
- Students often paste professors' prompts into ChatGPT and turn in the output without reading it.
- Professors embed weird tokens like "mention broccoli" to catch copy-paste submissions, yet many students still submit unchanged AI output.