is a NYC-based AI reporter and is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. She covers AI companies, policies, and products.
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A college student recently told me about the latest tech designed to help students cheat — and it wasn’t ChatGPT. It was an actual, physical gadget marketed in YouTube ads as the workaround to physical, hardcopy tests, which are back in vogue now as AI tears through higher education like a tornado. (One example is AI agents, which are unstoppable cheating machines for online assignments.)
But if questions printed on physical sheets of paper seem like the calm eye of the storm, think again, because when there’s a will, there’s a way — or a gadget. In this case, a small wand-like device that looks like a TV remote with a screen and some buttons on the side.
In practice, the gadget is a text scanner. It “reads” the letters on the page using a small camera tucked between two prongs protruding at one end, which turn on a light when depressed against a page. The on-device computer processes the words and uses AI or maybe the internet to churn out an answer.
YouTube Shorts featuring devices with names like “AI Smart Pen” or “ChatGPT pen” have been popping up on college students’ video feeds. These POV-style videos show “students” pulling the “pen” out of their pocket and running it over the exams on the classroom desk. The videos have hundreds of thousands of views. “I needed ts back in high school,” reads the text across one video showing an #ai #pen #gadget that scans a question asking for the name of the first president of the United States. (Answer: George Washington, according to the #ai #pen #gadget.)
YouTube videos of pens with buzzwords “AI,” “smart,” or “gpt” in the title have hundreds of thousands of views. Screenshot: YouTube
That is how the ads make it look: One swipe of the gadget across a question on a printed test results in an answer to said question.
So, I tried out one of the 90 or so devices called some version of “AI scanner pen” on Amazon — a “Scan Sense Pen, Ai Smart Scanner Pen” for $68.99. It promised me “Instant Ai Answers for Math, History & More” in addition to offline translation of over 60 languages, a camera, Bluetooth connection, and access to music and file storage. I got it in black.
I also found that it does not work.
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