‘Even good students are cheating’: Why US colleges are reviving a medieval solution to outsmart AI

US colleges are reviving medieval-style assessments like oral exams, viva voce, and in-class essays to counter AI-driven cheating. With detectors unreliable and students outsourcing work to tools like ChatGPT, institutions are shifting back to personal, improvisational learning methods. While students and faculty resist, experts stress this recalibration preserves identity formation, originality, and genuine intellectual growth in the AI era.