Decoder with Nilay Patel25 Aug 2025

Is ChatGPT killing higher education?

Hello! Decoder senior producer Kate Cox here. I’m afraid I’m still not Nilay, but I hope you’ve been enjoying our series of guest hosts this summer while he’s out on parental leave. We have a few more really great guest episodes coming up, before Nilay returns to the host chair later this fall, so stay tuned. The production team is taking our own break this week, so while we’re off we’re excited to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. Students all over the country — including my own kids, thank goodness — are back in school right around now, and so we thought it would be a perfect time to revisit host Sean Illing talking with journalist James Walsh about how AI tools like ChatGPT have kicked off a new cheating arms race that’s proving extremely disruptive to college education. There are a lot of big Decoder ideas — and problems — wrapped up in all this. Okay, The Gray Area, with Sean Illing. Enjoy. Links: If AI can do your classwork, why go to college? | The Gray Area Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine How to get students to stop using AI | Verge I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything | Verge Inside the frat-bro startup that wants you to ‘cheat on everything' | SF Standard A new headache for honest students: proving they didn’t use AI | NYT Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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