MIT Report: AI Can Now Credibly Complete Most Undergraduate Assignments

The MIT committee asked to study AI in education has a blunt answer for the question it was handed. Current models can already "produce credible solutions and provide reasonable responses to almost any written assignment in our undergraduate curriculum," its report concludes. Released August 25, the findings drew a "watershed moment for MIT" letter from President Sally Kornbluth — and a weekend r/singularity thread (roughly 250 upvotes, around 95 comments) asking what a degree is worth when the homework writes itself.

What the report says

The committee, co-chaired by professors Eric Klopfer and Samuel Madden and spanning faculty, staff and students, spent five months surveying a campus that had already changed. Students use AI "frequently and pervasively" with strongly mixed feelings; instructors range from growing reliance to outright "AI refusal." Over three years, office-hours attendance and online discussion participation declined, and in-person study groups are reportedly rarer. The report names the mechanism: increasing isolation, eroding mastery and confidence, and a strained "social contract" between instructors and students.

It is also unusually candid about its own methods. Instructors using AI to teach or evaluate must disclose it, the report urges, because students already perceive a "double standard" when the same tools are banned on their side. The committee admits using ChatGPT to catch redundancies in drafts and an OpenAI coding tool for appendix materials — while stating that none of the final text was AI-generated.

The committee's advice

The recommendations favor redesigning assessment over policing it:

• Handwritten, in-class early drafts, so each student's unaided baseline is on record.
• Regular deadlines with staged feedback through a project, instead of one final submission.
• No AI-detection software: imperfect, it risks discriminating against neurodivergent students and non-native English speakers, and invites a wasteful "arms race."
• No caps on top grades — rationing As would "intensify the temptation to cut corners," a pointed contrast with Harvard's plan to cap As in fall 2027.

Why it matters

This is a university's own assessment of its own curriculum, not a benchmark run — but the report makes clear that keeping up is not optional. It warns that governance built on "fixed, multi-committee, year-long review processes" cannot keep pace with AI's capabilities, and that nearly every subject may need to be reexamined. Kornbluth promised instructors guidance on AI policies for fall classes.

The split with Harvard is the telling part. Where Cambridge responds to grade inflation by rationing As, MIT argues rationing pushes students toward AI. Either way, the r/singularity reaction shows the question has left the faculty lounge: if AI handles the homework, what exactly does the degree certify?