GoKawiilUC Berkeley's Richard Borcherds drops graded homework over AI cheating concerns
Fields Medal-winning mathematician Richard Borcherds has stopped assigning graded homework at UC Berkeley, saying AI tools make it impossible to distinguish student work from machine-generated answers. He now relies mainly on in-person, device-free exams, noting that online exam scores have risen sharply in ways he attributes to AI use rather than learning gains.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The move reflects a broader struggle among educators to adapt assessment methods as AI writing tools become increasingly indistinguishable from human work, a trend also reported at Brown University where take-home exam scores jumped dramatically. This could accelerate a shift away from online and take-home assessments toward proctored, in-person testing across universities, though no formal policy change beyond individual professors' classrooms is indicated.
- Richard Borcherds ended graded homework at UC Berkeley due to undetectable AI use.
- He now primarily uses in-person, device-free exams to assess students.
- Similar score spikes in online/take-home exams have pushed a Brown University professor to make the same shift.
Source: tomshardware.com — Jowi Morales, 2026-10-27
Published there as: “Fields Medal-winning UC Berkeley professor ends graded homework due to AI cheating”
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