Faced with the ubiquitous use of AI by students, written exams and other forms of written evaluations will have to be replaced by oral examinations.
Students will have to defend their work by explaining it in a spoken presentation, so they can talk about what they learned, instead of submitting a paper, which they may or may not have written.
That's not just my opinion. It's the opinion I just heard expressed by Derek Thompson, a journalist who has become a media sensation since he co-published Abundance with Ezra Klein. Here's his interview with Fareed Zakaria today:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/07/politics/video/gps-0907-ai-threat-in-schools
In the past few years, I've come to believe that the oral defence is the only thing that can prevent the mass cheating and fakery that AI enables. Especially in 2023-2024, I saw a big reduction in the numbers of graduate students seeking my help, and many admitted they were using AI. But AI can't help you in an oral!
However, there's been a little shift in 2025 as universities have become more savvy in identifying the use of AI. Now I'm being approached by students who want help in removing AI-identified passages from their work. They want to hire because I DON'T use AI But that's just at a graduate level.
Schools across the world, trying to educate children, must realize that as soon as they can read and write, those children will have easy access to robots that can do their homework for them. This is truly leading to the dumbing down of humanity as children stop thinking for themselves.
So I'm glad the Derek Thompson agrees with me. We'll have to return to the Socratic method used by the ancients if we want evidence other students have acquired knowledge.
The good news is that AI has thousands of ways to reduce the routine, administrative work of teachers, and that will save them a lot of time that can then be used to talk to students. And that's a good thing, There IS a silver lining.