Professors Say AI Is Turning Campuses Into a 'Society of Cheats,' While an Arizona Influencer Pleads Guilty to Faking a Job for Clicks

A professor who has taught at Harvard and the University of Chicago for more than two decades says he now feels, on campus, "like I'm trapped in the middle of a crime spree." Not because of stolen bikes or dorm-room theft. Because of AI.

In an essay published by The Atlantic, the professor writes that he first noticed something off in the winter of 2023, when student papers started showing "squeaky-clean grammar, a superabundance of bullet points, and fairly robotic reiteration of facts" instead of the messier, more human writing he was used to grading. He teaches leadership and business ethics. He says what he's watching isn't just a shortcut. It's moral training.

"Every paper they don't write, every problem set they don't prepare, every serious reading they summarize into a memo," he writes, "all of these are exercises in cutting corners, in getting by, and, at graduation time, in gaining a degree they didn't earn." His conclusion is blunt: students who cheat their way through college will carry "a knack for cutting corners, a disdain for community rules" into the workforce. He calls it, flatly, "a society of cheats."

The Counter-Argument

Students and AI defenders would push back on that framing. AI tools like ChatGPT are, in this view, no different from calculators or spell-check: technology that changes how work gets done without automatically making the person using it dishonest. A student who uses AI to organize research, check grammar, or brainstorm an outline isn't necessarily submitting someone else's work as their own. The line between "tool" and "cheating" depends heavily on how a professor defines the assignment, and universities have been slow to write clear, consistent policies on where that line sits.

Most colleges still don't have uniform AI-use rules across departments, let alone enforcement mechanisms that can reliably detect AI-generated text. The professor's essay doesn't offer data on what percentage of students are actually submitting fully AI-written work versus using it as an aid, and that distinction matters. Concern about a cultural shift isn't the same as proof every student is faking every assignment.

But the professor isn't just describing detection problems. He's describing a mindset: an assumption, forming early in a person's adult life, that integrity is optional if you can get away with skipping it. That's the part that should worry parents and employers regardless of where anyone lands on AI policy specifics.

A Different Kind of Cheating, Same Instinct

A case out of Tempe, Arizona shows what that instinct looks like once it leaves the classroom and finds an audience.

Heston James Cobb, a 21-year-old who posted under the name "Heston James," pleaded guilty this past Friday to criminal impersonation, according to Fox News. Tempe police say Cobb led groups of men into local businesses dressed as employees, wandered into employee-only areas, and refused to leave when confronted, all while filming for social media.

In one video, Cobb wore a Chipotle Mexican Grill shirt and told real employees he was going to "clean house" before a group of men in matching dark shirts flooded the restaurant. One staged "employee" mopped a tabletop for the camera. Police say Cobb pulled the same stunt at Pep Boys, Hyland Auto Repair, Big Brand Tire & Service, and Jiffy Lube between March and July of 2025.

Cobb was arrested on July 23, 2025, and booked on third-degree burglary, criminal impersonation, disorderly conduct, and criminal trespass charges, Tempe police said. The videos, Fox News reported, drew millions of views and potentially made Cobb large amounts of money before his arrest.

Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant Association, told the Associated Press he hopes Cobb's punishment is "severe" enough to discourage copycats. "There's no place for it," Chucri said. "That's the last thing we need to put up with in the restaurant industry. The amount of money it takes to operate today is expensive."

Different Rulebooks, Same Result

A college paper and a fake Chipotle takeover aren't the same offense, and nobody's suggesting they are. One is an unresolved cultural debate about classroom policy. The other is a criminal case with an actual guilty plea on the record.

But both stories land on the same fact pattern: a real reward, whether a grade, a degree, or ad revenue and viral fame, obtained by faking the work that's supposed to earn it. In Cobb's case, the legal system has already delivered a verdict. In the classroom, the professor's essay argues, there's no equivalent mechanism catching up to the scale of the problem, and universities that have spent decades moving at a "glacial pace" on policy changes are now being asked to police a technology that changes every semester.

Cobb has not yet been sentenced, and it's unclear what penalty prosecutors will seek. On campuses, there's no comparable court date. Whether universities write enforceable AI policies with real consequences, or keep treating it as a gray area, remains an open question heading into the fall semester.