"Waiting in front of the lecture hall for my next class to start, and beside me two students are discussing which AI program works best for writing their essays. Is this what I'm marking? The tweet by historian Carla Ionescu late last month captures growing unease about what artificial intelligence portends for traditional university assessment. "Tell me we're not there yet." But AI has been banging on the university's gate for some time now. In 2012, computer theorist Ben Goertzel proposed what he called the "robot university student test", arguing that an AI capable of obtaining a degree in a same ways as a human should be considered conscious. Goertzel's idea – an alternative to the more famous "Turing test" – might have remained a thought experiment were it not for the successes of AIs employing natural language processing (NLP): most famously, GPT-3, the language model created by the OpenAi research laboratory. Two years ago, computer scientist Nassim Dehouche published a piece demonstrating that GPT-3 could produce credible academic writing undetectable by the usual anti-plagiarism software. "[I] found the output," Dehouche told Guardian Australia, "to be indistinguishable from an excellent undergraduate essay, both in terms of soundness and originality.

Exam cheating is as ancient a practice as education itself. Back in ancient China, cheating on the Imperial exams was a serious offense. And yet a Qing dynasty cheatsheet--in the shape of a handkerchief with 10,000 symbols in microscopic writing--is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, showing that students have always been inclined to borrow knowledge and ideas. Exam cheating is as ancient a practice as education itself. Historically, students could attempt to use their own handwriting as false proof of originality, but now the digital age has changed that.

The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) can be felt across every aspect of life, and higher education is no exception. AI is making education increasingly accessible and easier for students with disabilities, providing support for those who need additional help. But it can also help universities uphold academic honesty policies. Georgia Tech University in the US has developed "an AI agent" named Jack Watson to pose as a contractor and help the university identify students guilty of contract cheating. Contract cheating is a serious academic dishonesty that involves students getting an external party to contribute to or complete their assignments or assessments.