Is flunking kids the right reaction to catching them cheating? If it was before LLMs, is it still? I would love to be able to hold the line and throw the book at anyone who cheats, but after the dam has burst does it still help to try to hold the water back?

The whole situation sucks for both students and teachers. Teachers know that the knowledge they're going to great effort to convey isn't going anywhere. Or at least, it's landing in far fewer fertile brains than it used to. Students are squeezed because part of the university experience is being forced to adapt to an academic load, and as a result change yourself in ways that benefit you (or at least produce learning!) There have always been relief valves -- not just forms of cheating, but blowing off a study session by using game theory on your grade or going to a tutor or taking easier classes or extending your stay at the school. But now there's this huge giant relief valve in the form of a shiny LLM that is always available, particular at 3:45am when your project -- the one you've steadfastly refused to use AI on thus far -- is due the next day. The schools have tuned the pressure for the old set of options, and it's not clear that there's a new tuning that maintains anywhere near the old level of learning.

I guess my question is: of those students who were flunked for cheating, how many of them were learning despite their cheating? (And how about the students who were cheating but not caught?) Also, what levers are there to move more students towards learning even with the chatbots present?

I'm sure these questions are being debated. I know Garcia personally, and he is very invested in his students learning. The title of his Joy course is legit. So I'm sure the profs have ideas around this, though clearly not happy ones. Perhaps I'll ask him.