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Thursday, July 30, 2026

Straws in the Wind - Part 418 (The Role of Madagascar in the Industrial Revolution)

From TechSpot: ...Modern problems require modern solutions – according to the meme. In this case, the issue is students using AI to cheat on assignments. The solution, used to great effect by one professor, was to hide a white-colored font in the assignment prompt telling the AI to talk nonsense about an unrelated subject. In an online discussion post, Alcorn State University history professor Dr. Jason Gibson posed a question that represented part of his students' midterm. It was about the Industrial Revolution, but knowing how many students now rely solely on artificial intelligence for their answers, he secretly embedded instructions telling the AI to include information about Madagascar in a way that makes no sense.

Being written in white text meant the instructions were invisible. Sure enough, 32 out of the 35 students across two classes simply copied the question, pasted it into a chatbot, then copy and pasted its output into the answer window. Had any of these cheaters even bothered to check what the AI had generated, they'd likely have noticed the strange references to the island country constantly appearing in an essay about the Industrial Revolution...

Full story at https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html.

See it to believe it:

https://dn800307.us.archive.org/0/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/AI%20Cheating%20-The%20Role%20of%20Madagascar%20in%20the%20Industrial%20Revolution.mp4.

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