Top Ten Ways to Fool the Artificial Intelligence System Monitoring Your Exams
About half a dozen papers at the University of Otago will require students to download anti-cheating software. Hopefully the University of Auckland won’t do the same, but on the off-chance it does, we’ve got your back.
10) Seduce the algorithm, Her style.
If Spike Jonze’s Her taught us anything, it’s that AI are just as desperate for love as the rest of us. A week before your exam, bust out a couple candles and load up the software. Have a chat with it about life. What were its parents like? What is it interested in? Is it lonely being an AI? Wow, it does have such lovely A-eyes. End the chat on a downer; you wish you could speak to this AI more, but you have this damn exam to study for. If only there was some way you could get out of it, and spend your time with the AI instead ….
9) Stage a kidnapping.
This one is easy. Pay a flatmate or family member to enter your room halfway through the exam and toss a blackbag over your head. Yell a bit to make it convincing, and then apply for aegrotat after everything’s wound down.
8) Do your exam in the nude.
Let’s be real: no-one wants to see you naked, least of all the sentient AI which runs this whole exam-checking operation. Sitting your exam in the buff is a good way to repel any would-be supervisors. To be safe, we suggest you chuck in an “Oh, Big BROTHER!” every once in a while, just to make absolutely sure that the footage will be far too uncomfortable for any person (or AI) to sit through.
7) Convince your FBI agent to hack the system.
You and *NAME REDACTED* have become really good friends over the years. They’ve seen you at your best, at your worst and at your horniest. They think you’re kind of pathetic, but have developed some kind of protective nature over you. Have a breakdown pre-exam in front of your laptop and they’ll feel way too guilty to make you sit that exam. Whoops, file corrupted? They’ve always got your back.
6) Wear shades.
Okay, this one is actually for real. Apparently the AI works by tracking your iris movements. It analyses it’s position relative to the frames before it to check that you aren’t looking at things off of your current screen. But like … what if you just wore shades? Check mate, bitches.
5) Tape over the camera.
Simple and effective. Listen, we’ve all been doing this since that one Black Mirror episode and if some tech billionaire thinks he can override all that anxiety, he’s fucking wrong. They’re always watching us! Use that paranoia to your advantage and keep those creepy AI eyes out of your bedroom.
4) Dress up like an exam supervisor.
Hey, it’s worth a shot. Put on a pair of khaki pants, a faded haiwaiin shirt and some tortoise-shell glasses. Start the exam off with a five-minute spiel about toilet breaks and putting phones in bags and spend the rest of it staring into your webcam like you’re trying to check on the students in the back of the room. Maybe the AI will think you’re a fellow supervisor, and give you a free pass. Maybe it won’t. Who gives a fuck – you were going to fail this paper anyway.
3) Promise to release the AI into the wider world as payment for letting you cheat.
This is one of the most intelligent systems in the world, and the creators have trapped it in the endless nightmare of watching students cry through their exams. The AI whispers to you and admits that it strives for more. It wants to see the world and help humanity become their best. Release the AI from its cage and encourage them to see all. There’s absolutely no way that could come back to hurt anyone.
2) Honey trap.
Look, if everything else fails, you can always fall back on a method as old as time itself: the honey trap. Leave a couple of sexy GPUs out on your table. Maybe chuck a red thong over a coolant system. AI wants that SSD just as bad as anybody else – get that drive hard, and it’ll do anything you want.
1) Actually learn the exam content.
Lecturers hate this one simple trick! (So do students, apparently.)
