The EI Podcast Universities are at crisis point
Apr 23, 2026
Nicholas Wright, neuroscientist and author on leadership and national resilience, and Daisy Christodoulou, education researcher and assessment specialist. They debate how large language models have changed cheating and assessment. They argue for practical institutional fixes like in-person and oral assessment, discuss STEM shortfalls and national competitiveness, and explore whether universities can be reformed without stronger state capacity and leadership.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
LLMs Have Democratized Academic Cheating
- Large language models have democratised cheating across university essays.
- Daisy Christodoulou compares this to the mass sale of indulgences after printing made them cheap and ubiquitous, undermining institutional legitimacy.
Random Oral Checks Caught Undisguised Cheating
- An Oxford lecturer randomly sampled students to read essays and exposed that beautifully written submissions were not their own.
- Dr Nicholas Wright described selecting five students from a class of 30 and noticing obvious inability to read their submitted essays.
Use In-Person Exams And Random Vivas To Prevent Cheating
- Reintroduce in-person and oral assessments to make cheating harder and more detectable.
- Nick and Daisy suggest pen-and-paper exams, random spoken viva checks and sampled oral testing as practical countermeasures.