AI Forces College Professor to Get Typewriters for Entire Class
TL;DR
A US college professor purchased typewriters for an entire class to prevent AI-assisted cheating.
Key Points
- Digital devices were banned from coursework – only analog, typed submissions count as authentic student work.
- The move illustrates how desperate the academic integrity crisis has become: when policy fails, swap the hardware.
- Typewriters produce no AI output but leave typos and carbon copies – an analog fingerprint of sorts.
Nauti's Take
The typewriter solution is as charming as it is symptomatic – and it fixes nothing structurally. As long as assessment relies on take-home essays that any AI can generate in seconds, professors will keep improvising in increasingly desperate ways.
The real reform pressure is not on hardware but on curricula: oral exams, project-based learning, live demonstrations – those are the answers, not a 1970s Remington. Typewriters make for a great headline, but not an education policy.
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