As university students in South Korea wrap up their examination period, a striking cheating scandal has surfaced in the country's most prestigious institutions. The universities, known collectively as 'SKY', which include Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, have made headlines for simultaneous incidents involving artificial intelligence-aided cheating, sparking a heated debate.
The midterm exam of the 'Natural Language Processing and ChatGPT' course held at Yonsei University on October 15th marked the inception of a scandal. The exam, which was attended by approximately 600 students, was conducted online, with all students being instructed to record their faces, hands, and screens.
Despite these precautions, many students were observed to manipulate their camera angles to create blind spots and access multiple windows on their screens to reach ChatGPT or other resources.
Upon reviewing the records, numerous suspicious activities were detected, leading to at least 40 students admitting to cheating. It was announced that these students would receive a score of zero. However, in an anonymous survey conducted on the campus app, Everytime, out of 353 students, 190 confessed to using artificial intelligence during the exam.
It was discovered that students in the 'Aging Societies' course at Korea University were collectively answering their online exam by sharing screenshots in group chats. Some students even admitted to using artificial intelligence tools directly. It was announced that all of these students would be given a zero score.
Meanwhile, at Seoul National University, attempts to cheat using AI-supported tools during a statistics exam were detected. While no details were shared, it was decided that the exam would be retaken.
These consecutive incidents at these institutions, known as the most challenging universities in the country, have caused a scandalous impact nationwide.