Brown University students suspected of using AI to cheat on exam
Professor Roberto Serrano at Brown University reportedly detected widespread AI-assisted cheating on a March midterm exam, where 40 of 86 students scored perfect marks and the class average was 96. When the same content was tested in a proctored final exam, the average score dropped to 48, prompting Serrano to eliminate take-home exams from his course.
What happened
On a March 5 midterm exam for an advanced mathematical economics course at Brown University, 40 out of 86 students scored a perfect 100, with an average score of 96 out of 100. Professor Roberto Serrano reported that some answers contained unusual passages that coincided with results obtained by running the questions through ChatGPT.
On the in-person final exam, which accounted for half the final grade, the average score dropped to 48 out of 100. Of 27 students who did not show up for the final exam, 22 had scored 100 on the midterm, according to Serrano.
Reported impact
Serrano stated that 'the empirical evidence of fraud is overwhelming' and decided to stop giving take-home exams as a result. The incident highlights broader concerns about students resorting to AI tools to score high grades while contradicting honor codes they swore to uphold.
Index analysis
The unusually high midterm scores followed by dramatic collapse on the proctored final exam suggested students used AI to generate answers on the take-home exam. The incident reflects growing tensions at Ivy League schools over AI-facilitated cheating, with Princeton recently ending a 133-year 'Honor Code' tradition involving professors leaving the room during exams.
Governance controls
Brown University's academic code reportedly lacked explicit rules on AI use at the time, leaving faculty to fight fraud alone. Some professors lamented becoming 'plagiarism cops' focused on rooting out AI-facilitated cheating instead of teaching.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.