‘Checkmate’ looms for traditional tests amid AI glasses epidemic
New Zealand case ‘the tip of the iceberg’, and banning the technology will not solve the assessment problem, expert warns
The University of Auckland has become the latest institution to discipline a student for taking AI glasses into a test after organisers had “explicitly” warned that smart devices were prohibited.
The phenomenon has moved beyond East Asia, described by CNN as “ground zero” for AI-facilitated cheating. The broadcaster reported that a Taiwanese applicant to a top medical school had been discovered wearing smart glasses in the entrance exam, after an inspection revealed that the glasses’ frame was emitting heat.
In South Korea, people being tested on their English language skills were caught using smart glasses on separate occasions in May. Two years earlier, a Japanese teenager was referred to prosecutors for allegedly using camera-equipped glasses to photograph university entrance exam questions and share them with outsiders, according to Kyodo News.
Thomas Corbin, a research fellow at Deakin University’s Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning, said such reports were the tip of the iceberg. “Most of the cases that we are seeing are just happenstance,” Corbin told Times Higher Education.
