Brown Professor Flags AI Cheating After Only 2 of 59 Matched Midterm Scores
Updated
Updated · Tom's Hardware · Jul 9
Brown Professor Flags AI Cheating After Only 2 of 59 Matched Midterm Scores
3 articles · Updated · Tom's Hardware · Jul 9
Summary
Only two of 59 Brown students who took an in-person final scored within 10% of their take-home midterm results, after professor Roberto Serrano switched formats to test suspicions of AI-assisted cheating.
Serrano said the midterm average jumped to 96% from a historical 65% to 80% range, and many answers looked "kind of correct" but convoluted — similar to responses he got from ChatGPT.
After he announced the final would be in person, 18 of 86 enrolled students dropped the class and nine skipped the exam; three of those who sat the final scored zero.
Brown's academic code committee had not acted before the case became public, but the university now plans to review individual cases. Serrano said the episode raises broader concerns about normalizing cheating.