Remember Blue Books? AI Cheating Is Bringing Them Back To Schools

The rise of Gen AI may have many fearing for their jobs, but there’s one unexpected industry getting a surprise boost from tools like ChatGPT—the makers of “blue books,” the small booklets of lined paper used in schools.

Sales of blue books more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, according to data from Circana reported by The Economist, around the same time tools like ChatGPT gained popularity among students all over the world. The news comes as teachers across the US are getting creative about how they engage with and assess students amid the epidemic of AI-assisted cheating, putting pen and paper back into the spotlight.

Two-thirds—66%—of high-school and college instructors are now changing assignments in response to AI use by students, according to a 2023 survey by Intelligent, noted by The Economist. Over three-quarters—76%—said they now required or planned to require handwritten work, and 87% said they required or planned to incorporate oral presentations.

Many other college teachers are employing more outside-the-box methods to ensure that their students can’t cheat with AI tools. One literature professor at Rutgers University told The Economist she tells students to attend a play whose ending changes every night, to ensure they attended in real life.

AI-assisted cheating certainly isn’t just a US problem, and many other countries are taking different approaches, like clamping down on the AI tools themselves. This year, during the week of China’s national university entrance exam, the country’s most popular domestic AI tools disabled some of their image recognition features, to prevent cheating.

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But it’s not just concerns about educational attainment that are forcing colleges to get creative in fighting AI-based cheating, increasingly US colleges have serious financial incentives too. Community colleges across the US are dealing with waves of fake “bot” students, who hand in AI-generated coursework and fraudulently claim state and federal student aid, according to an investigative piece by The Voice of San Diego. Some college teachers claimed that over 10% of students in some of their classes were fake students, using AI to try to get through their courses.

Teachers, as well as students, are adopting AI en masse. A recent Gallup poll found that three out of five teachers are now using AI in some capacity. AI firms like OpenAI are now rolling out tools custom-made for the needs of educators, with ChatGPT for Teachers rolling out earlier this month. The tool enables things like access to ready-made prompt suggestions from other teachers, as well as support for the data protection requirements which teachers in the US are expected to abide by.