Brown professor reports AI cheating in economics class

A Brown University professor has uncovered evidence of widespread cheating using artificial intelligence in his economics course after a dramatic collapse in student performance between a take-home midterm and an in-person final exam. Professor Roberto Serrano, who has taught at the Ivy League institution for 34 years, said the average score in his Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory class plummeted from 96 out of 100 on the take-home test to just 48 on the supervised final.

The unusual circumstances began last December following a shooting on the Brown campus that killed two students. To accommodate students dealing with trauma and anxiety, Serrano made the unusual decision to allow the spring semester midterm exam to be taken at home. Enrollment in the course, which typically attracts between 8 and 30 students, surged to 86. Of those, 40 students scored a perfect 100 on the take-home exam, resulting in the class average of 96. Serrano noted this was extraordinary, as historical averages for the course ranged from 65 to 80 percent, and he had deliberately made this exam more difficult given the take-home format.

Suspicious of the results, Serrano and his teaching...