The Pandemic That Changed Everything

Ah, COVID-19—the great technological accelerator that catapulted us years, if not decades, into the future. As someone wrapping up high school when the lock down so generously graced our lives, the entire school experience flipped overnight. Gone were the days of dragging myself out of bed at an ungodly hour to shower, brush my teeth, and endure the soul-sucking ride in that dreadful yellow bus, only to spend hours staring out the window during lectures, doodling in the back of my notebook. Instead, my new routine consisted of rolling out of bed, logging into Zoom half-conscious, and spending the day cursing the WiFi connection (take that, Mrs. Z!). Google became my best friend—Forms quizzes? A joke. I’d love to say it was a one-time thing, but oh no, the lock down stretched on for nearly two years, long enough for an entire generation to get really, really comfortable with Googling their way through exams. And just when we thought we'd seen it all, along came ChatGPT.

Cheating—or as some prefer to call it, "strategic information acquisition"—has never been easier. In hindsight, I have to grudgingly admit that my college made the right call by dragging us back for in-person exams as soon as humanly possible. Otherwise, I’d probably be ranting on Reddit about how college was a total waste of time (not that I don’t still believe that, but let’s stay on topic). And now, as I watch universities and certification bodies across Europe and the U.S. eagerly push more exams online, I can’t help but wonder: how exactly are they keeping their credentials from becoming glorified participation trophies? Because, let’s be real—AI has made cheating almost a team sport. Ethics? Please, that’s a relic of the past. If everyone is doing it, then technically, no one’s cheating... right? (At least, that seems to be the prevailing philosophy on Reddit.)

Who Needs Professors When AI Writes, Grades, and Proctors?

Educators, bless their hearts, are now desperately trying to outsmart AI by feeding it students' responses and asking if another AI wrote them. It’s basically an AI death-match at this point. And here’s the ultimate irony—if you’re not using AI to monitor exams, then congratulations, you’re probably letting an AI administer them. Think about it: most online tests today are automatically generated, automatically graded, and increasingly, automatically reviewed for plagiarism or AI-generated responses. So, if AI is setting the questions, evaluating the answers, and deciding whether your work is “real” or not, is it even a human-run exam anymore? Or just a bot-led bureaucratic ritual? But here’s where things get interesting: what if instead of relying entirely on AI, institutions actually combined live human proctoring with AI-driven oversight?

Unproctored Exams: Just Group Projects in Disguise

You know, like using technology responsibly instead of pretending it's either a magic bullet or a dystopian surveillance tool? AI alone is predictable students will eventually find ways to outsmart it. But add human proctors into the mix, and suddenly, things aren’t so easy to game. A hybrid model could mean real-time human proctors watching for actual suspicious behavior—students looking off-screen a little too often, whispering under their breath, or pulling off the classic let me pretend to stretch while subtly glancing at my notes move. Meanwhile, AI can handle the heavy lifting: flagging irregular typing patterns, detecting unauthorized devices, or analyzing audio cues that no single human proctor could possibly track across hundreds of students. Instead of an AI vs. AI war, this creates a system where AI helps human proctors focus on real threats rather than babysitting every single test-taker.

Academic Integrity Is Dead—Long Live AI Integrity

Let’s face it—without some form of oversight, online exams are basically an honor system. And we all know how well that works. Institutions that refuse to adapt and still insist on basic, easily bypassed security measures are essentially giving students a free pass to cheat. No monitored webcam? No live human proctor watching? No AI scanning for anomalies? Well, then you’re not testing students—you’re just handing out open-book group projects disguised as exams. So, students, if you’re going to cheat, at least learn how to prompt properly. And teachers, if you’re still holding out hope that students will appreciate those two days you spent crafting an exam? I respect your optimism—but I wouldn’t count on a thank-you note, especially in an online setting.