College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
by gnabgib on 4/18/2026, 7:00:00 PM
Comments
by: throwatdem12311
When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low.<p>We already had AI proof education.
4/18/2026, 9:47:05 PM
by: fizlebit
I think if your university doesn't do in person exams with pen and paper then the degrees it hands out are not much evidence of anything.<p>If you're not interested in learning the course content, then what are you doing there? Pretty expensive waste of time.<p>I very fondly recall many of the course I did at university. The exams were a helpful motivating factor even for the interesting courses.
4/18/2026, 10:43:31 PM
by: RhysabOweyn
Why are people promoting the idea that exams are not written or given in person anymore? I graduated relatively recently and maybe had 1 take home exam during my entire education. Every other exam was proctored in person and written. The professor who made the take home exam also made it much more difficult than a normal exam so I would not really say it was easier than a normal in person test.
4/18/2026, 9:57:11 PM
by: whartung
What's interesting is that as I understand, folks are using things like Google Docs for papers, and that it's (apparently) straight forward to do analysis on a Google Doc to see, well, the life of the document. How it was typed in, how fast, what was pasted and cut back out.<p>My understanding is that the Google Doc is not a word processing document, it's an event recording of a word processor. So, in theory, you could just "play back" watching the document being typed in and built to "see" how it was done.<p>I only mention this because given the AIs, I'm sure even with a typewriter, it's more efficient to have the AI do the work, and then just "type it in" to the typewriter, which kind of invalidates the entire purpose of it in the first place.<p>The typing in part is inevitable. May as well have a "perfect first draft" to type it in from in the first place.<p>And we won't mention the old retro interfaces that let you plug in a IBM Selectric as a printer for your computer. (My favorite was a bunch of solenoids mounted above the keys -- functional, but, boy, what a hack.)<p>TaaS -- Typing as a service. Send us your Markdown file and receive a typed up, double spaced copy via express shipping the next day!
4/18/2026, 9:01:09 PM
by: recursivedoubts
I used to make my classes 60-80% project work, 40-80% quizzes all online.<p>I now do 50% project work, 50% in person quizzes, pencil on paper on page of notes.<p>I'm increasingly going to paper-driven workflows as well, becoming an expert with the department printer, printing computer science papers for students to read and annotate in class, etc.<p>Ironically, the traditional bureaucratic lag in university might actually help: we still have a lot of infrastructure for this sort of thing, and university degrees may actually signal competence-beyond-ai-prompting in the future.<p>We'll see.
4/18/2026, 8:27:14 PM
by: Swizec
When I was in college, your grade fully depended on the oral exam/debate with the professor. Everything else was but the entry ticket.<p>Not sure anyone even attempted to cheat in that scenario. And the conversations were usually great, although very stressful for us cramming types
4/18/2026, 8:46:42 PM
by: opengrass
Better dust off that old AlphaSmart!
4/18/2026, 10:11:02 PM
by: singpolyma3
If students cheat they hurt only themselves. Make sure they understand the consequences for cheating (missing out on learning) and that's about all you can do.
4/18/2026, 9:34:06 PM
by: gentleman11
I had a typewriter growing up and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing. I was amazed by it and tried writing several stories. Eventually my dad bought me a crappy old computer that was only really good for writing, and that was cool too. I loved that thing. It was small too, with an integrated monitor and keyboard, so it didn't take over the whole desk where I still used pencil and paper often<p>Imagine being able to do some writing without notifications going off every few seconds, and where you're not always one click away from a search engine and some website scientifically designed to drag your attention down a rabbit hole and keep it there
4/18/2026, 9:19:03 PM
by: gorgoiler
I’m confused about too many things being measured at once. Is Phelps banning AI to ensure her students are fit to pass terminal examination? And doing so to ensure that her class has a good pass rate, proving she is a good teacher and can keep her job? What if her cohort are particularly dumb? Is she incentivized to make it <i>easy</i> to pass her classes to get that A you paid so much for? Or <i>hard</i> or make that A worth something?<p>My mentor, a PhD in classics, told me it was never about outcomes and only about improvement. I suppose that answers my question. If your AI gets you an A at the start of the course and an A at the end, then, in the sense that you have not succeeded over anything, you have failed.
4/18/2026, 9:34:30 PM
by: onesociety2022
If AI can do the work, maybe the test should be more focused on what AI can’t do? This is like anyone still doing a traditional coding interview with leetcode problems just because they haven’t yet done the work to figure out what to test for in a world where Claude Code exists.
4/18/2026, 8:58:18 PM
by: syngrog66
One consequence of LLM fraud at scale making remote/online tests & document submission worthless is it might act as a giant revitalizing boost for the bricks-and-mortars school systems. Suddenly having real teachers and students in room together has value again, for credibility and authenticity alone.<p>LLMs are also making having a public repo code portfolio be much more worthless as a sign of legitimacy
4/18/2026, 8:50:41 PM
by: dyauspitr
Just have them write it out. “Ain’t nobody got a goddamn typewriter”.
4/18/2026, 10:19:59 PM
by: llbbdd
Might be an unpopular opinion in this thread, but college was made worthless for most degrees as soon as the internet got popular and silly performative shit like this is the death knell. College is about learning how to work in an industry. I'd predict an uptick in trade schools and other hands-on work like medicine, and a continuing downturn in so-called formal education for anything white-collar, programming included. Students are customers. Businesses are going to use AI going forward. No reason to waste time on this.
4/18/2026, 9:55:31 PM
by: arcfour
Pfft, just grab a teletype and run lpr -P ttyUSB0 ai_generated_report.txt ;-)
4/18/2026, 9:56:42 PM
by: CalChris
Next up: allow slide rules on exams.
4/18/2026, 8:31:36 PM
by: rvz
The college instructor might as well ban calculators and use abacuses then.
4/18/2026, 9:46:59 PM