ChatGPT Is OP Against Traditional Assessment | James Walsh on Rendered by Robots
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project. The question is no longer how do we regulate this. The question is why are we teaching what we're teaching if a robot can do it easily.
James Walsh, journalist at New York Magazine and author of the viral article "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College," joins Spencer Striker and Alessandra El Chanti to discuss what his deep dive investigation revealed about the state of higher education in the age of generative AI.
In this conversation, James walks us through how he broke this story. His editor asked a simple question: how are kids cheating these days? A week into reporting, he went back and said the thing is, everybody is cheating. We explore what the term "academic project" really means and why it's being called into question at every level, from cutting edge research to business school to poetry class.
James describes the despair he encountered among K-12 teachers and college professors, some looking forward to retirement, others scrambling for AI-proof assessments like oral exams and blue books. We discuss the Wendy problem, named for a student who walked him through step by step how she constructs papers with AI. Wendy likes writing. She speaks nostalgically about high school before AI when she had to formulate her own ideas. But if all her classmates are using AI to get ahead, she feels she has no choice.
We get into the arms race between faculty and students, from Turnitin detectors to students laundering AI text to sound more human, to professors trying Trojan horse prompts that trick AI into revealing itself. James argues none of it is sustainable. We talk about Roy Lee, the Columbia undergrad who raised five million dollars for an AI company while still in school, and what his mindset reveals about a generation being told that humans are the liability.
James draws parallels to the Industrial Revolution and Bryan Merchant's book Blood in the Machine, noting that the attitudes of today's tech entrepreneurs toward labor are shockingly resonant with factory owners of the past. The conversation closes with James reflecting on what's changed since his article came out: professors inspired to switch things up, conversations finally happening, but also AI advancing so fast that these questions are more urgent than ever.
Referenced: "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College" by James Walsh, New York Magazine. Clay Shirky on identity formation. Nataliya Kosmyna's MIT study "Your Brain on ChatGPT." Bryan Merchant's Blood in the Machine. The Paper Chase (1973).
Links:
James Walsh's article: nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html
Host: spencerstriker.com
About the Series
Rendered by Robots: AI & the Future of Design Edu explores how AI is transforming the way we teach, create, and imagine media production education. It’s a podcast for educators, creators, and students navigating the AI revolution with clear eyes and curious minds.
CREDITS: Creator & Host — Spencer Striker, PhD | Co-Host & Director — Alessandra El Chanti, MFA | Featured Guest — Clay Shirky, Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education at NYU | Editor, Sound Design & Motion Graphics — Kyle Trueblood | Producer — Adam Sullivan | Camera & Sound — Yunting "Unity" Zhan, Qinbei "Bissy" Li | Project Manager — Aimelyn Geronimo | Special Thanks — Miriam Sherin (Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education); Alumnae Award for Curriculum Innovation (Northwestern University Office of the Provost); Marwan M. Kraidy, PhD (NU-Q Office of the Dean); S. Venus Jin, PhD (Artificial Intelligence and Media Lab | AIM-LAB); Nisar Keshvani (NU-Q Communications and Public Affairs); Rami Al-Badry, Floyd Yarmuth, Ihsan Yahya (NU-Q Production & Digital Media Services) 🔖 #ClayShirky #AIEducation #HigherEd #FutureOfLearning #IdentityFormation #EdTech #GenerativeAI #NYU
