News Roundup #17: 6/26/25 ("Brainrot" Edition)
This is your brain..., Smart Glasses + ChatGPT, 1,000s caught cheating in UK unis, Fake books (again), AI Generated Influencer Sponsored Ads, and more...
I missed you all last week (and surely you missed my news round up). We’re gearing up for the 4th of July (Independence Day) here in the State and it’s been hot AF so I hope this finds you cool, calm, and sliding into July with positive momentum.
-Joe
Rising threat to online and face-to-face exams: Smart Glasses + ChatGPT
Thomas Lancaster raises this recent Reddit (great source for cheating intel) post detailing a student’s use of Meta’s AI-enabled Raybans during an IN CLASS examination. Should it have been stopped? Clearly.
👾LINKEDIN | R/RAYBANMETA
This is your brain on ChatGPT
Dubious methodology in this research paper that really struck a nerve despite the small n-size and large page size (206 pages!). The TL;DR is 1. of course not thinking is not learning. 2. other people have cautioned sharing and why (and do so with much better clarity than I could muster).
🍳THE PAPER | BEN RILEY | PHILLIP ALCOCK
Deep dive investigation to Turnitin’s business and university contracts
The Chronicle and the Markup have a long-form article by Tara García Mathewson who looks at Turnitin (hi) exposing some of the agreement information and pricing based on public record requests and interviews. While it’s an interesting read covering the evolution of the near-ubiquitous tool, it does not pull punches: “with the return to in-person learning but climbed again when the release of ChatGPT gave Turnitin its next crisis to monetize…” (no mention of the two-dozen other player in AI detection1 also monetizing this technology and crisis).
😈THEMARKUP
Preach JGL: ““Your digital self should belong to you.”
It’s a longer quote, but the video, a recording of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s address to the UN Internet Governance Forum, is well worth the ~3 minutes.
More Fake Books, this time recommended to employees at Business Insider
Semafor covers a small controversy at the news firm where leadership drafted and shared book recommendations for employees as Beacon Books (books to understand the right kind of business journalism) including Mark Zuckerberg Autobiography: The Man Behind the Code. It doesn’t exist. Ironic in light of the fact that BI just also laid-off 20% of it’s staff citing increasing “use of AI” as the reason.
What’s faster than reading a book?
Reading one that doesn’t exist.
📚SEMAFOR | VARIETY
Revealed: Thousands of UK university students caught cheating using AI
Great reporting on the rise of AI-enabled cheating in the UK university system clearly reflecting what we’ve also witnessed in the tracking of the Essay Mill Database website traffic data we’ve been collating since 2023.
GUARDIAN
That dress or shirt you see, its real but the influencer in the video isn’t
In this issue of “words & phrases I wish didn’t exist”: “AI Sponcon” (sponsored content). Tiktok and other social media platforms are rolling out AI-generated sponsored content to sell merch, clothing, and other items. Rather than AI generated images, these might also include short videos of the “influences” modeling the clothing.
Great so now I get to feel back about myself because the shirt doesn’t fit as well as it did on A MAKE BELIEVE PERSON.
👗THEVERGE
EVENT: MoodleMoot 2025 in Edinburgh, early bird pricing goes down soon
I’m a huge Moodle fan, and I know a bunch of you also work at Moodle using institutions so if you’re headed to Edinburgh in September, make sure you get your tickets before 6/30 early bird deadline (£200 off) and drop me a line!
Ⓜ️MOODLE
Speaking of Moodle: We’re also gearing up for a July release of our latest Cursive’s Moodle plugin.
This release extends our Free features:
process tracking,
transparent notification to students if Cursive is in use, and
copy+paste monitoring
No API necessary, here you go:
ThIs Is mE MoNeTizInG ThE crSiS. 🤪
AI Detector https://aidetector.com/
AI Detector Pro https://aidetector.pro/
Copyleaks www.copyleaks.com
decopy https://decopy.ai/ai-detector/
Detecting AI https://detecting-ai.com/
GPTZero https://gptzero.me
Grammarly https://www.grammarly.com/ai-detector
Inspera (FKA Crossplag) https://crossplag.com/
IsGen https://isgen.ai/
Merlin https://www.getmerlin.in/
Originality.ai https://originality.ai
Pangram https://www.pangram.com/
Phrasly https://phrasly.ai/ai-detector
PlagiarismCheck https://plagiarismcheck.org/ai-detector/
Plagium https://www.plagium.com/
PlagScan https://www.plagscan.com/
QueText https://www.quetext.com/
Quillbot https://quillbot.com/ai-content-detector
Sapling https://sapling.ai/ai-content-detector
Scispace https://scispace.com/ai-detector
Scribblr https://www.scribbr.com/plagiarism-checker/
Smodin https://smodin.io/ai-content-detector
Tryleap https://www.tryleap.ai/tools/ai-content-detector
Turnitin https://turnitin.com
Winston AI https://gowinston.ai
Writer https://writer.com/ai-content-detector/
ZeroGPT https://www.zerogpt.com/