McCabe’s research confirms this: once cheating becomes normalized and the system loses legitimacy, defection becomes the dominant strategy.
This is the classic prisoner’s dilemma.
- If everyone plays fair, all benefit.
- But if others cheat and you don’t, you fall behind.
- So even the “good” students feel forced to cheat just to stay even.
This, however, isn’t a moral collapse.
It’s a design failure.
The real revelation?
AI exposed that a lot of school work isn’t worth the effort.
Maria Montessori said it a century ago:
“The work must be something the child feels is worth doing.”
Schools forgot and flipped that.