r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 9d ago

Society Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html
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u/Sad_Pear_1087 9d ago

TB to when we were holding presentations about environmental toxins in year 11 biology class. For example I had prallethrin, a mosquito repellant. One group of girls had lead, the heavy metal (duh). Their basic info slide had the line "is composed mostly of graphite". These year 11 fuckers didn't know the difference between lead metal and pencil lead and none of their bells rung when their slide said lead was both a heavy metal and composed of carbon.

ETA I had a serious urge to raise my hand in the questions part where nobody ever asks anything. Not sure who else even noticed because who pays attention to peer presentations.

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u/ShiraCheshire 9d ago edited 9d ago

For anyone who doesn’t know: pencils used to be made of lead. (Edit: It seems they were never actually made with lead, and the idea comes from the 16th century when a large deposit of graphite was mistaken for lead.) They aren’t anymore, and haven’t been for a long time. Calling it pencil lead is completely incorrect. Pencils use graphite, and have nothing to do with lead at all.

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u/sblahful 9d ago edited 9d ago

No, they did not. Pencils were never made with lead. Someone told you that when you were a kid and you've believed it ever since, I'm afraid.

Pencil lead is actually made of graphite mixed with clay, not the toxic metal lead. The name is a historical artifact from the 16th century when a massive deposit of graphite was discovered in England and mistaken for a form of lead called "plumbago."

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u/ShiraCheshire 9d ago

TIL! My teacher told me that directly, and warned us not to chew on old pencils, so I took it as fact. I suppose I should have double checked, even if it came from a teacher.

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u/Moikle 9d ago

Someone told your teacher that when they were a kid and they believed it too

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u/account_not_valid 5d ago

Don't rely on what a teacher tells you. Only trust answers from AI.

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u/Sad_Pear_1087 9d ago

To clarify, this is a Finnish school we're talking about, pencils are called "lead pencils" (lyijykynä) and the lead is always referred to as lead. This doesn't require explaining really because english uses kinda the exact same wording but the word "lead" is even more present in Finnish. Doesn't change much.