'You're wearing glasses? Straight A's?' — Universities wage war on AI cheating as finals loom

"I'll need to check your glasses as well."

During a midterm exam for a social science writing course at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies' Seoul campus in April, a teaching assistant walked into the classroom and began inspecting students' eyewear one by one. The check came in response to the recent emergence of AI-equipped smart glasses and the cheating risks they pose.

"The teaching assistant came in during the exam, checked whether any student was wearing AI glasses, and then left," said Ko Hye-min, 21, a student at the university. "The professor explained that the school had received an official notice regarding the matter and that was why the inspection was being carried out." Ko added that students reacted with confusion or amusement, with some asking whether anyone actually wore such glasses.

Universities are grappling with a new set of concerns over AI use as final exams get underway. Using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to complete assignments has already become routine, and the rapid spread of wearable devices — smart glasses and wireless earbuds among them — is now raising fears of a new breed of academic dishonesty.

Incidents of AI-assisted cheating have already surfaced on campuses, fueling anxiety over online exams. Some students have taken matters into their own hands, while schools have begun issuing guidelines. Lee Won-jae, 27, a student at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, emailed his professor directly last year after an online quiz in a financial management course was held on laptops, worried that cheating would be easy.

"There was only one proctor, so anyone who wanted to use ChatGPT could have done so easily," Lee said. "I thought the same thing could happen in the midterm and final exams, so I passed on my concerns to the professor." Two additional teaching assistants were subsequently assigned to supervise exams in that course.

A business administration student at Yonsei University, who asked to be identified only by his surname Nam, 23, said the school advises professors to avoid formats prone to cheating — such as AI-assisted, open-book or online exams — leaving the final call to each instructor. "All business major courses strictly prohibit AI use during exams," Nam said. "Some courses also require students to specify, when submitting assignments or reports, which AI tool they used and what prompts they entered."

Professors are on high alert as they try to keep pace with AI. Some have turned to "AI CopyKiller," a plagiarism-detection tool that has added an AI-detection feature to its existing functions, analyzing text suspected of having been generated by AI.

Concerns about wearable devices are also growing. Han Na-ri, 23, a student at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said professors have been warning students in class not to wear earbuds such as AirPods discreetly, and that some have expressed worry about AI cheating via smart glasses. "They also emphasize that assignments must be written entirely in the student's own words," she said.

Koo Jeong-woo, a sociology professor at Sungkyunkwan University, said he encourages students to make active use of AI since there is no way to stop them — but added that concern is spreading among faculty. "There is growing worry among professors that new technologies like smart glasses could be exploited for cheating in exams," he said. No confirmed cases have come to light, he noted, but situations have arisen where a student's exam answers stood out as unusually strong compared with their work in other subjects, prompting suspicion that smart glasses may have been involved.

Some educators have turned to analog methods to preserve fairness. Lee Eun-hee, a consumer psychology professor at Inha University, said she requires students to base assignments on personal experience and their own thinking, and has opted for offline, handwritten exams over online formats. "The most primitive method is the most transparent and fair," she said.

On smart glasses in particular, Lee said the challenge is that while mobile phones and smartwatches can be confiscated, glasses may serve as a vision aid, making it difficult to ask students to remove them. "Once they become widely used, they could become the most vulnerable point in any exam setting," she warned.

The problem extends beyond universities. Two incidents of cheating using AI smart glasses were reportedly detected at domestic TOEIC regular exams last month. Similar cases involving wearable devices have also been reported overseas, particularly in China and Japan.

Education authorities are watching the situation closely. An official at the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation said the agency is discussing cheating prevention measures with the Ministry of Education and provincial education offices, taking into account recent advances in smart devices. "We plan to have countermeasures in place before the September mock exam and the College Scholastic Ability Test," the official said.