Teacher reflects on AI doing homework
The gist
A teacher says AI agents could complete all his assignments, so he redesigned most assessments.
The debate now spans South African principals, Harvard lecturers and new AI teacher tools.
How it unfolded
- 2021Vincent Hellendoorn suggested Christian Kästner try GPT-3 on his course reading quizzes; it produced convincing answers that passed the rubric without seeing the assigned paper, and Kästner changed nothing at the time.
- 2024Laurence Holt of the XQ Institute wrote in Education Next about 'The 5 Percent Problem,' arguing ed-tech student-learning results often only apply to the 5 percent of students who used the program as intended.
- May 2026Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube announced the department was reviewing a white paper on e-education that is 22 years old and predates generative AI.