ARTICLE · 1318063

AI 作弊席卷大学校园:学生滥用 AI,渐渐学会投机取巧、漠视规则... | 大西洋月刊双语学习笔记 | Cheats

发布时间：2026-11-06 07:16:33 最近访问：2026-11-06 07:16:34

The Atlantic | August 30, 2026

今天的文章剖析大学校园 AI 作弊泛滥的现状。作者结合哈佛、普林斯顿、布朗大学真实案例，指出学生普遍抱有 “无受害者犯罪” 的错误认知。作弊低惩罚助长投机，不仅腐蚀学术环境，更塑造漠视规则的价值观，长远伤害整个社会的诚信根基。一起来学习吧~

标题部分

A Society of Cheats

Students’ use of AI is teaching them to cut corners, disdain rules, and believe that integrity is for suckers and wimps

一个充斥欺骗的社会

学生使用AI，正在教会他们投机取巧、蔑视规则，并且认为诚信只属于傻子和懦夫

cut corners /ˈkʌtɪŋˈkɔːrnərz/ phr. 投机取巧，偷工减料 Many people cut corners to save time. 许多人为节省时间而投机取巧。
disdain /dɪsˈdeɪn/ v. 蔑视，鄙弃 He disdains trivial formalities.他不屑于繁文缛节。
suckers and wimps /ˈsʌkərz ənd wɪmps/ n. 傻子与懦夫 Only suckers and wimps stick to the principle. 只有傻子和懦夫才坚守这套原则。

正文部分

Recently, I have taken to telling friends that whenever I’m on campus, I feel like I’m trapped in the middle of a crime spree. I’m not talking about an epidemic of overdue library books or out‑of‑control parties. I’m talking about AI and the ways in which students are constantly using it to cheat on any work that is assigned to them.

最近，我常常跟朋友说，只要身在校园，就仿佛身陷一连串不法行为之中。我说的不是图书馆图书逾期，也不是失控的派对，而是人工智能，学生们动不动就用 AI 完成各项作业、投机作弊。

crime spree /kraɪm spriː/phr. 接连犯罪，一连串不法行为 The city suffered a crime spree last summer. 这座城市去年夏天接连发生多起不法事件。

For those of us in higher ed—and I’ve taught at universities for more than 20 years—such widespread cheating is a baffling predicament. Universities are medieval creations. They are encrusted with eccentric customs, antique bureaucracies, and hierarchical privileges; any significant change typically comes about at a glacial pace. Not too long ago, I was still filling out grades in triplicate. I can liken the arrival of AI only to what it might have been like had a tribe of Neanderthals discovered a flying saucer hovering just outside their cave. To say that we were unprepared doesn’t begin to describe the experience.

对于从事高等教育的我们而言 —— 我已经在高校任教二十余年 —— 这种大范围作弊是个令人费解的困境。大学源自中世纪，身上积淀着古怪习俗、老旧官僚体系与等级特权；任何重大变革都进展极其缓慢。就在不久前，我还需要一式三份填写成绩单。AI 的到来，就好比尼安德特人部落发现洞穴外悬停着飞碟。说我们毫无准备，都不足以形容当下的处境。

baffling predicament /ˈbæflɪŋ prɪˈdɪkəmənt/n. 令人费解的困境 The university faces a baffling predicament. 这所大学面临一个难解的困局。
encrusted with /ɪnˈkrʌstɪd wɪð/phr. 厚厚附着；积淀满 The old system is encrusted with outdated rules. 旧制度积淀了大量过时规章。
glacial pace /ˈɡleɪʃl peɪs/phr. 极其缓慢的节奏 Reform proceeded at a glacial pace. 改革推进得极为缓慢。

By now, there have been many articles about how undergraduates’ promiscuoususe of AI will affect their intellectual development, but I’m far more interested in its moral consequences. This is partly because I’m pretty confident about the former—I’ve told graduate students who actually learned how to write papers in college that I anticipate a generation of incompetents roughly a decade behind them—but also because I teach classes in leadership and business ethics, and I’m aghastat so many young people seemingly habituating themselves to cheating as a way of life.

如今已有大量文章讨论本科生滥用 AI 会如何影响心智发展，但我更关注它带来的道德后果。一方面，我对心智层面的影响心中有数，我跟那些大学时期扎扎实实学会写论文的研究生说，十年之后会出现一代能力匮乏的年轻人；另一方面我讲授领导力与商业伦理课，看到这么多年轻人似乎已经把作弊当成常态，我深感震惊。

promiscuous /prəˈmɪskjuəs/adj. 不加分辨的，滥用的 It refers to promiscuous use of online tools. 该词指对网络工具不加节制地滥用。
aghast /əˈɡæst/adj.惊骇的，大为震惊的 Teachers are aghast at the scale of cheating.教师对作弊的规模感到震惊。
habituate oneself to /həˈbɪtʃueɪt wʌnˈself tuː/phr. 使自己习惯于 He habituated himself to late‑night work. 他让自己习惯了熬夜工作。

Many students would no doubt object to this claim, but plainly that’s what they’re doing, cheating their way through their education. Every paper they don’t write, every problem set they don’t prepare, every serious reading they summarize into a memo—all of these are exercises in cutting corners, in getting by, and, at graduation time, in gaining a degree they didn’t earn.

很多学生无疑会反对这一说法，但事实就是如此：靠着作弊走完求学之路。每一篇自己不动手写的论文、每一套不去认真完成的习题、每一份把深度阅读简化成备忘录的任务，全都是投机取巧、蒙混过关，到毕业时拿到本不属于自己的学位。

cutting corners /ˈkʌtɪŋˈkɔːrnərz/phr. 偷工减料，投机取巧 Cutting corners will cost you in the long run. 投机取巧终将让你付出代价。
earn /ɜːrn/v. 凭努力赢得，挣得 She earned her diploma through hard work. 她靠努力赢得文凭。

That word is key: earn. To say that someone “earned” something is to apply a moral distinction to what one acquires. Not only can we get things we didn’t earn, but we can also obtain things we don’t deserve. The first is the good fortune of the trust‑fund kid, the second the province of a thief.

“赢得” 是关键词。说一个东西是 “凭努力得来”，是对所得之物做出道德层面的区分。我们可以得到并非自己挣来的东西，也可以得到本不配拥有的东西。前者是信托基金子弟的运气，后者则属于窃贼的行径。

province /ˈprɑːvɪns/n. 领域，范围 This kind of deception is the province of liars. 这类欺骗属于说谎者的行事。

Students are spending a lot of time learning to be thieves nowadays, and once they receive their dubious diplomas, they will enter the “real world” with all the qualities of a criminal syndicate: a knack for cutting corners, a disdain for community rules, and an assumption that a spirit of integrity, and the sacrifices it assumes, is the reserve of suckers and wimps. We will be a society of cheats.

现在学生花大量时间学会投机窃取。拿到含金量存疑的文凭后，他们踏入现实社会，身上带着犯罪团伙的特质：擅长投机取巧、漠视集体规则，还认为坚守诚信以及为此做出牺牲，只是傻子和懦夫才做的事。我们将会变成一个充斥欺骗的社会。

dubious diplomas /ˈduːbiəs dɪˈploʊməz/n. 含金量存疑的文凭 Many worry about dubious diplomas from AI‑assisted work. 很多人担忧依靠 AI 得来的水分文凭。
criminal syndicate /ˈkrɪmɪnl ˈsɪndɪkət/n. 犯罪团伙 The criminal syndicate evaded supervision. 该犯罪团伙逃避监管。
disdain for /dɪsˈdeɪn fɔːr/phr. 蔑视，不屑 He shows disdain for basic rules. 他对基本规则嗤之以鼻。
suckers and wimps /ˈsʌkərz ənd wɪmps/n. 傻子与懦夫 Don’t be taken as suckers and wimps. 不要被当成傻子和软柿子。

I began to notice the change in the winter of 2023, when some of the writing assignments for my classes at Harvard and the University of Chicago took on qualities I had never seen before: squeaky‑clean grammar, a superabundance of bullet points, and fairly robotic reiteration of facts rather than the pleasing lurchof original thinking.

2023 年冬天我开始察觉到这种变化。我在哈佛、芝加哥大学授课，部分写作作业呈现出前所未有的特征：语法完美无瑕疵，大量项目符号罗列，机械重复事实，看不到原创思维那种灵动起伏。

squeaky‑clean /ˌskwiːki ˈkliːn/adj. 毫无瑕疵的，过于完美的 The essay has squeaky‑clean grammar but no insight. 这篇作文语法完美，却毫无洞见。
superabundance of /ˌsuːpərəˈbʌndəns əv/phr. 极其大量的 a superabundance of data 海量数据
lurch /lɜːrtʃ/n. 跌宕起伏；思维的跳跃 The lurch of creative thought makes writing vivid. 创造性思维的起伏让文字生动。

This is the horrid house style of AI‑generated papers; initially, it was not only the clumsiness of these papers that made them easy to dismiss but also the fact that the students submitting them were outliers. No longer. A survey by The Harvard Crimson found that one‑third of the graduating class admitted to “using AI for an assignment against instructor permission,” which is a fairly sanitizedway of saying “using AI to cheat.”

这就是 AI 生成文章令人难受的固定文风。一开始，不仅文章生硬容易识别，提交这类作业的还只是少数特例。如今已经不是这样。《哈佛深红报》一项调查显示，三分之一应届毕业生承认 “未经教师许可使用 AI 完成作业”，这是对 “用 AI 作弊” 委婉修饰的说法。

outliers /ˈaʊtlaɪərz/n. 少数特例，异常个体 At first cheaters were merely outliers. 一开始作弊者只是少数特例。
sanitized /ˈsænətaɪzd/adj. 经过美化修饰的 sanitized language 委婉修饰过的措辞

That survey was of students who’d entered college in the fall of 2022, before the mass adoption of AI tools. When it comes to students who are just arriving on campus this semester, I keep thinking about a colleague who teaches freshman composition at the University of Chicago. In the spring, he told me that, across all of the sections he had led over the past year, he believed that only three of his students submitted assignments written without the help of AI. Three students. In a class whose explicit aim is to teach writing.

这份调查对象是 2022 年秋季入学的学生，彼时 AI 工具还没有大规模普及。说到这学期刚入校的新生，我总会想起芝加哥大学教大一写作的同事。今年春天他跟我说，过去一年他带的所有教学班中，他认为仅有三名学生提交了完全不靠 AI 完成的作业。仅仅三个人，而这门课的明确目标就是教会学生写作。

At least part of the reason for this pervasive use of AI appears to be well‑founded confidence that cheaters will not get caught, and that if they do, the consequences will be minimal. Take, again, the Harvard survey I mentioned. Among those 2026 graduates who admitted to “using AI for an assignment against instructor permission,” 93 percent of them said their cheating went undiscovered. Of the remaining students, more than half of them said they faced no disciplinary consequences even after they were caught. Just 2.6 percent of these students who used AI “against instructor permission” said they paid any price for their offenses—which, on the whole, is pretty good odds for anyone who is tempted to cheat.

AI 泛滥的部分原因在于，作弊者笃定自己不会被抓；就算被抓，代价也微乎其微。回到前面哈佛的调查：承认未经许可使用 AI 的 2026 届毕业生里，93%表示作弊没有被发现。剩下被抓到的学生中，超过半数表示没有受到任何处分。仅有 2.6% 的人为违规付出代价。对有心作弊的人来说，这胜算实在太高。

odds /ɑːdz/n. 概率，胜算 The odds of getting punished are very low. 受到惩罚的概率很低。

For those inclined to break the rules, “playing the odds” is hardly an unusual strategy. It’s the corrupt cost‑benefit analysis of fare evaders, speeding drivers, and tax cheats. It treats community rules not as common obligations but as opportunities for risk assessment. In the face of some illicit benefit, the question is not one of right and wrong, but of the likelihood of punishment.

对于有心违反规则的人，“赌概率” 是很常见的策略。逃票、超速、偷税漏税的人都会做这种扭曲的利弊权衡。集体规则不再视作共同义务，而变成风险评估对象。面对非法收益时，思考的不再是是非对错，而是受罚的可能性。

Such thinking is especially seductive when it comes to “victimless crimes.” We often use that term, a hazardous oxymoron, to describe activities in which any benefits to the offender seem to outweigh any potential injury to others. To would‑be offenders, the moral appeal of carrying out such crimes can be quite powerful, especially when the harm in question is remote or uncertain. They know the good they would enjoy, so it seems unjust and even gratuitous that they should deny themselves the reward when no serious harm would come to others.

当涉及 “无受害者犯罪” 时，这套想法尤其诱人。这个说法本身是危险的矛盾修辞，用来描述行为人获益、对他人伤害看似微乎其微的行为。潜在违规者很容易被这种逻辑蛊惑，尤其是伤害遥远、不确定的时候。他们看得见自己得到的好处，就觉得既然不会造成实质伤害，克制欲望反倒毫无道理。

seductive /sɪˈdʌktɪv/adj. 有诱惑力的 The logic sounds seductive but is flawed. 这套逻辑听上去诱人实则存在漏洞。
oxymoron /ˌɑːksɪˈmɔːrɑːn/n. 矛盾修辞 “Victimless crime” is an oxymoron. “无受害者犯罪”是矛盾修辞。

My hunch is that this is how a lot of students see the unsanctioned use of AI. No real damage comes to any other person when they use these tools to write a paper or complete a problem set. At the same time, especially in a world where everyone is doing it—why should they put themselves at a disadvantage of time, trouble, and professional advancement?

我猜想很多学生就是这样看待私自使用 AI 这件事：用 AI 写论文、做习题，没有直接伤害任何人。更何况大家都这么干，凭什么要自己耗费时间精力，在未来发展上吃亏？

Of course, such logic already accepts one kind of harm: a debasement of the academic experience. A news report provides a bleak illustration. In the spring, Roberto Serrano, an economics professor, decided to change the exam format for one of his classes from in‑person to take‑home. This was a generous concession on Serrano’s part to the anxiety that many of his students felt about being back in the classroom after the mass shooting on campus in December. How did students respond? Once they heard about the change, enrollment soared. Nearly 90 students signed up for a class that had never had more than 30 before, and the average score on the midterm was 96, with 40 students “achieving” a perfect score.

当然，这套逻辑已经无视了一种伤害：学术体验的贬值。一则新闻案例就足以说明情况。今年春天，经济学教授 Roberto Serrano 把一门课的考试由线下改为居家开卷。去年 12 月校园枪击事件之后，很多学生对返校心存焦虑，教授做出这项让步十分体恤。学生的反应是什么？消息一出，选课人数暴涨。这门课以往最多 30 人，这次将近 90 人选课；期中平均分 96 分，40 人拿到满分。

debasement of /dɪˈbeɪsmənt əv/phr. 贬低，贬值 debasement of academic standards 学术标准的贬值

One doesn’t need the training of a tenured economist to know that this result is improbable. As Serrano recounted, he ran his exam through ChatGPT and got answers similar to those of his unusually impeccable pupils—“kind of correct,” he said, but “with a very convoluted style.” And so, for the final exam, he switched back to an in‑person format. Eighteen students immediately dropped the class. Nine students who remained did not take the exam at all. And among those who did, the average score was 48.6, the lowest average for a final exam in the history of his class by nearly 20 points.

不需要资深经济学家也能看出这个结果不合常理。教授说他把考试题输入 ChatGPT，输出答案和那些 “完美答卷” 高度相似：大体说得过去，但行文迂回晦涩。于是期末考试改回线下，18 人立刻退课，留下的学生里 9 人直接弃考；参加考试的学生平均分 48.6，创下这门课历史期末最低，落差接近 20 分。

impeccable /ɪmˈpekəbl/adj. 毫无瑕疵的 impeccable answers 完美无瑕的答卷
convoluted /ˈkɑːnvəluːtɪd/adj. 错综复杂的，绕弯子的 convoluted writing 晦涩绕弯的行文

Serrano was understandably sore. “We cannot afford to have a society in which a significant fraction of our best young minds think that cheating is OK,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “That leads to a declining society, to a failed society.” The specific failure he had in mind is intellectual—“We cannot choose to become idiots”—but the episode encapsulates the kind of moral rot that sets in whenever members of a community stop regarding rules as obligatory.

教授的气恼情有可原。他接受高等教育媒体采访时表示：我们承担不起这样的社会：大批最优秀的年轻人认为作弊无伤大雅，这会让社会走向衰败。他指的不只是智力层面的退化 —— 我们不能主动选择变得愚昧；这件事也集中体现：当社群成员不再把规则视作必须遵守的义务，道德腐朽便由此滋生。

sore /sɔːr/adj. 恼火的，愤愤不平的 He was sore about the exam outcome. 他对考试结果感到恼火。
encapsulate /ɪnˈkæpsjuleɪt/v. 概括，集中体现 The story encapsulates the moral crisis. 该事件集中反映这场道德危机。

Set aside the offenders. For students in class who actually care about a subject, they know that they are surrounded by peers who are constantly cheating on their coursework. For professors who are excited to communicate new ways of thinking, they have to face a wall of young people who won’t make even the barest effort to understand the subject matter. And for graduate students who are working as teaching assistants, they have to spend hours each semester grading bogus assignments, at the end of which they face the prospect of having to give out a passel of underserved A’s.

暂且不谈作弊者。对于真正热爱学科的学生，身边到处是作业作弊的同学；满怀热忱想要传授思维方式的教授，面对大批连最起码钻研都不肯做的年轻人；担任助教的研究生，每学期耗费大量时间批改虚假作业，最后还不得不给出一堆名不副实的 A。

barest effort /ˈberəst ˈefərt/phr. 最起码的努力 They do not make the barest effort to read. 他们连最起码的阅读都不肯做。
bogus assignments /ˈboʊɡəs əˈsaɪnmənts/n. 虚假作业，AI 生成的作业TA graded piles of bogus assignments. 助教批改大量虚假作业。
passel of /ˈpæsl əv/phr. 一大批，一沓 a passel of students 一大群学生

This is the upshot of the crime spree under way at campuses across the country and around the world. It doesn’t involve the same type of harm as spiking the water supply or setting a building on fire—harm that is immediate, overwhelming, and undeniable—but, in the long term, it’s no less destructive. It entirely corrupts the integrity of an academic community, because learning in a classroom is impossible when everyone knows that the proceedings are ridiculous.

这就是全球各大校园这场 “作弊乱象” 带来的结果。它不像投毒、纵火那样造成立竿见影、无可辩驳的伤害，但长期来看破坏力不相上下。它彻底腐蚀学术共同体的诚信：当所有人都知道课堂流程已经变得荒诞，真正的学习就不复存在。

upshot /ˈʌpʃɑːt/n. 最终结果，结局 The upshot is a broken academic environment. 最终结果就是学术环境遭到破坏。

Glacial though they may be, universities are starting to respond. As The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch reported, Princeton’s faculty voted to mandate proctors for all in‑person examinations. The decision is the most significant change to the university’s famed Honor Code since it was first introduced in 1893, when the young men of Princeton successfully contended that their word alone should be enough to satisfy any concerns about cheating. For more than 130 years, students have had to attest: “I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code during this examination.” Henceforward, they will still be asked to do so, but it will be merely a formality. The faculty has decided that students simply cannot be trusted.

尽管高校行动迟缓，但已经开始应对危机。据《大西洋月刊》报道，普林斯顿教工投票通过，所有线下考试强制配备监考。这是该校 1893 年荣誉准则设立以来最大改动。当年学生认为仅凭个人誓言就足以约束作弊。130 多年来，学生考试都要宣誓：“我以名誉担保，本场考试没有违反荣誉准则。” 今后宣誓依旧保留，但只剩形式意义，校方已经认定，不能再无条件信任学生。

mandate proctors /ˈmændeɪt ˈprɑːktərz/phr. 强制设置监考人员 The school will mandate proctors for all finals. 学校将为所有期末考试强制配备监考。
formality /fɔːrˈmæləti/n. 流于形式的手续 The oath has become a mere formality. 宣誓仅仅沦为形式。

This is how communities tend to respond to crime waves: They beef up law enforcement. Surveillance widens, punishments stiffen, and legal codes expand to police behavior that was formerly restrained by customary norms of honor, decorum, and mutual reciprocity. As the superintendents of their academic communities, faculty find themselves having to prioritize the disciplinary elements of their job. They will spend more time serving as judge, jury, and executioner, even when what they really want to do is what they do best: research and teach.

社群面对犯罪浪潮往往会这样应对：强化管控。监控范围扩大、惩罚加重，原本依靠名誉、礼仪、互相约束的行为，现在要靠规则强制监管。作为学术共同体管理者，教师被迫把纪律惩戒当成工作重心。大量时间用来充当裁判，即便他们真正擅长的本是科研与教学。

beef up /biːf ʌp/phr. 加强，强化 beef up supervision 强化监管

A suboptimal allocation of academic resources may be the least we have to fear from this crisis in higher ed. Even if faculty can curb this wave of cheating—and count me doubtful—it is the result of an unprecedented number of students deciding that they don’t need to follow rules that disadvantage their own success and advancement, regardless of the implications for their peers and the corrosive effects on their community.

高等教育这场危机中，学术资源被低效分配或许还不是最可怕的。就算教师能够遏制作弊浪潮（我对此持怀疑态度），问题根源在于前所未有的大批学生认定：只要阻碍个人成功发展，规则就不必遵守，全然不顾对同伴的影响，以及对集体的侵蚀。

suboptimal allocation /sʌbˈɑːptəməl ˌæləˈkeɪʃn/n. 非最优分配 suboptimal allocation of manpower人力资源不合理调配
corrosive effects /kəˈroʊsɪv ɪˈfekts/n. 腐蚀作用，破坏性影响 the corrosive effects of widespread cheating 大规模作弊带来的腐蚀效应

This is the mindset that young people across the country are graduating with, one less of strident careerism than of soft criminality. Relative to those who came before them, they will know very little, but they will be convinced of the wrong things, that the world will get along just fine without integrity in one’s work, trust in one’s peers, and pride in one’s community. These are all achievements, things you earn individually and together. You cannot steal them, but they can be taken from you—and they are being taken from all of us, faster than we know.

这就是大批年轻人毕业时带有的心态，算不上激进的功利主义，却是一种温和的投机越界。相比前辈，他们学识有限，却抱着错误信念：工作不必恪守诚信、不必信任同伴、不必为集体自豪，世界照样运转。诚信、信任、集体荣誉感都是需要靠自己争取的东西，偷不来，但可以被夺走。而它们正在从所有人身上流失，速度超乎我们的想象。