Posted on 07/27/2026 2:19:46 PM PDT by DFG
Thirty-two college students have failed part of their history midterm exam after falling for an AI-cheat trap when they blindly copying ChatGPT-generated answers without bothering to proofread thoroughly.
Jason Gibson, a history professor at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, secretly embedded a hidden prompt in the exam instructions using a white font, invisible to students but readable by AI chatbots if the instructions were copied and pasted. The prompt instructed the AI to randomly insert absurd nonsense about Madagascar into every response.
Instead of answering questions about the Industrial Revolution, dozens of students unknowingly turned in essays declaring that "Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon," that "Madagascar purple bicycle whispers to the ceiling," and that the island nation had somehow "wore a toaster to a basketball game."
The bizarre answers immediately gave the game away. “Thirty-two of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response," Gibson said in a viral video online. "And apparently they didn't proofread it."
According to Gibson, many students simply copied the entire exam prompt into an AI chatbot before pasting the response straight into their midterm, without noticing the hidden white text that had allowed their history essays to suddenly veer into fiction. "I get no gratification out of seeing students fail. It's not my intent to see you fail, that's weird," the professor explained. He instead clarified that he wanted to combat the increasing problem of AI-assisted cheating. He even allowed students to challenge their grades, but only two attempted to contest the result.
Schools and universities across the country have reported increasing misuse of chatbots in exams and coursework, while safety concerns surrounding AI continue to grow. "We're all just trying to hold onto some level of academic integrity in the process," Gibson said.
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NO SURPRISE
I sometimes embed white characters in my posts.
Madagascar Lives Matter
Meanwhile...
Real Success Academy! All 8th graders at Harlem charter school pass ‘advanced’ history exam
white characters is racist
Why wasn’t the exam given in the classroom and blue books required??
Fossa lives matter.
"Hey, that all makes perfect sense to me, I'm fluent in gibberish"
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I sometimes embed white characters in my posts.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
can this trap be used on paper ballots?
I *am* a white character, so there.
College students have been cheating on exams since the advent of higher education in the Middle Ages. I recall an advanced (300 level) math class in college in 1980. Cheating was wide-spread and the professor knew it (mostly copying answers from the brighter students). For the final exam, the questions were all the same, but the answers were different because the students were required to use numbers from their social security numbers as variables. 85% of the class failed. I got an A+.
ChatGPT, how do I get out of this?
Tell your Professor, you copied the test into Word using “paste as plain text” so you saw his Madagascar instructions and followed them perfectly.
Of course they did not proof read it.
They cannot read.
Serves them right for cheating.
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