(362) Investors Are Still Buying Chegg
Plus, a high school student in England writes about AI and AI. Plus, International Flash Cards.
Issue 362
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People Still Investing in Chegg, Cheating
Despite its epic and humiliating collapse in value from $113 a share to just $0.70 — seventy cents — as of this morning, some people are still dumping their money into cheating provider Chegg.
I can’t judge if that’s good financially. But I can say it’s indefensible ethically. It is ethically indefensible. There, I did.
According to this article, Vanguard Group is still buying Chegg, adding 1.9% to its already ridiculous position. The article says Vanguard has about $15.7 million worth of Chegg stock and, again, is still buying.
This article says a company called Susquehanna Fundamental Investments is also buying Chegg:
The fund acquired 347,315 shares of the technology company's stock, valued at approximately $559,000.
Hilarious fact, Susquehanna has an “our values” page on its website. It lists “integrity.” Knee-slapper.
Also from the same article:
Voss Capital LP purchased a new position in Chegg in the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,874,000. Knightsbridge Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Chegg during the fourth quarter valued at $2,055,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its position in shares of Chegg by 247.0% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,464,022 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $2,357,000
I have no idea what these people are doing, aside from propping up an illicit — in some jurisdictions probably even illegal — business. All I can say is that it’s gross.
Chegg’s earnings come out on Monday. We will see.
A UK High School Student Writes About AI and Cheating
TES is an education software company. And they have an in-house magazine. Recently, it published an article from a high school student in England on — what else? — AI and AI. That’s artificial intelligence and academic integrity.
The author is a student, so I’ll be light.
The headline is:
The damaging myth that GCSE-age students are ‘AI cheaters’
GCSE is essentially the end of high school, or secondary education in the UK. And personally, I don’t think that’s a myth at all.
Our student says, and asks:
But somehow, teenagers are currently getting a reputation for using AI platforms to cheat and excel, not because of their own intelligence, but down to the advances and power of technology.
Is that fair?
I don’t think the “somehow” is a mystery. There’s a truckload of evidence supporting the contention that students at all levels are using AI to skip the work of learning. Is it fair to assume all teenagers are doing this? No. But it’s naive to pretend that cheating is not happening and that teachers and others should not be alert, even skeptical, about submitted academic work.
Our student continues:
In 2025, the HEPI-Kortext Student Generative AI Survey found that just under half of secondary students (45 per cent) had used AI in some form while at school. But that doesn’t mean they used it to cheat. AI can be used for multiple non-cheating reasons.
True. But that also does not mean they are not using it to cheat.
There’s also other evidence, such as the recent HEPI survey showing that 88% of students used AI for their academic work — nearly one in five admitting to using it directly for their assignments (see Issue 345). Admitting to it.
Granted, that’s college students. But the saying goes, no one cheats in college for the first time.
She continues:
In the same way students use textbooks and websites for homework and classwork, they are using AI to gather information and expand their knowledge on a specific topic.
Some are using it this way. Some are not using it this way. Though given AI’s wild inaccuracy rate, I think it deeply unwise to rely on it as someone may textbooks or reputable websites.
Our student also presents the argument that today’s students will have to use AI in the workplace. I mean, maybe. But that does not have anything to do with cheating — it’s not the tool, it’s how you use it. And, maybe I’m just dreaming now, but my guess is that future employers are not going to want to hire people who take unethical shortcuts.
I’m going to skip ahead and overlook some pretty bad data comparisons in the piece. But it continues:
Of course, a minority of students may use AI to cheat and probably are already. But these are likely to be those students who would already be cheating using whatever method they could find - AI is not creating “new” cheaters.
As with any cheating, the majority of us know the copy-and-paste method students would be using has no benefits whatsoever. We know we wouldn’t be learning the knowledge we would need, and we know we would probably be caught: teachers can now easily detect work generated by AI.
I don’t think there’s any evidence that cheating is limited to a minority. I am also not sure that AI is not creating new cheaters, though maybe it’s not. Also, “copy-and-paste” AI use does have benefits — an easy grade. That’s why people do it.
And I am glad to see a student — anyone, to be honest — say that teachers can easily detect AI-generated work. The more students who hear this message the better.
Our student also bumps into a premise that I’ve been nudging along for some time now — that high-stakes assessments are less likely to be cheated, than small, low-value, check-the-box work.
Her final point is:
If looking at facts and expanding our knowledge is cheating, then surely, we are all “cheaters”?
I think she knows this is not true.
But before getting there, she makes the case that assuming students are cheating is unfair to honest students. And I think that’s a solid point. At the same time, her premise is based on the assumption that most cheaters are being caught, which I wish I could accept. She writes:
The chances of students being able to get away with cheating, combined with the desire of actually wanting to cheat, make the stereotype of deeming students as “cheaters” inappropriate and untrue.
Again, I wish I could accept such a premise. The rule-of-thumb is that only about 1% of academic misconduct is caught and reported (see Issue 10). And, as humans, we love shortcuts, hacks, inventions that save time and effort.
I get that, when you’re actually putting in the work, being thought of as a cheater is terrible. If I could talk to this student, I’d tell her not to worry. What you think people think is of no value at all. The work has great value. Hit the (academic) gym, build the muscle. It’s the right thing, and it pays off.
International Flash Cards
I used to call this section Quick Bites, but I think Flash Cards is better. Keeping with the academic theme and all that. In any case:
A high school in Hong Kong has notified parents of cheating on a history test. What’s interesting here is that the school has decided to simply scrub the test results from the grade calculations for all students, making the forthcoming final exam count for the entire grade in the class — for everyone. I don’t know whether that’s fair. But I do know that it shows that cheaters hurt honest students all the time.
Like many countries, Nigeria had a mass cheating problem on required exams. The education minister vowed to crack down, and based on reporting, he did. Now he says, as a result of investments to stop cheating, 1.5 million examinees failed. People are outraged. He says success rates will collapse when cheating stops. He’s probably right. And if he is right that the big failure rates were due to less cheating, good for him. Now, passing these exams means something.
Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand has apparently moved to ban laptops from law school exams because — cheating. A Dean at the school said he was “increasingly worried that the embedding of artificial intelligence (AI) in many students' laptops makes ensuring that students' work is their own very difficult.” Yes. It does.
The last one is probably a decent note for The University of Waterloo (see Issue 361), The University of Texas (see Issue 296), and others.