A college professor is going old-school to fight a very modern problem—AI-written assignments.
At Cornell University, instructor Grit Matthias Phelps has her students writing essays on manual typewriters—no spellcheck, no Google, no AI. The goal: make sure the work is actually theirs and force them to think through every word.
The assignment came after students started turning in suspiciously polished work they couldn’t explain, raising red flags that AI might be doing the heavy lifting. By removing tech entirely, students have to slow down, focus, and rely on their own brains.
Students say it’s brutal—but revealing. Without a delete key or quick answers, they think more carefully, collaborate more, and learn to live with mistakes.
Turns out the real “AI detector”… is a machine invented in 1868.
