Month: August 2026

BREAKING NEWS:  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “AI cases have overwhelmed academic-integrity committees across the country, leaving professors and administrators scrambling over how to prove — and punish — misuse” (August 13th online). 

Relax, folks.  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come up with a solution.  Sally Kornbluth, MIT’s President, announced on Sunday that she has disbanded the school’s seven-member Academic Ethics Committee and replaced it with GOTCHA!, an AI android that serves as the sole hearing officer for cases of student plagiarism and cheating.

“With GOTCHA!, the review process is easy-peasy,” says Kornbluth.  “We simply provide the android with the name of the accused student.  After GOTCHA! examines its comprehensive data bank on the student’s pre-college life, including his/her criminal record, eating habits, and known list of associates, it renders a decision of ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’.  Thoroughly exploring a student’s biography in this way will tell you everything you need to know about whether that student would do something bad in college.  There’s no need to look at the suspicious paper or exam produced by the student.  Once GOTCHA! has the student’s name, the whole process takes about 15 minutes.  Incredible!“

A guilty verdict typically results in GOTCHA! imposing a sentence of life in prison.  “We’ve lost nearly a quarter of our freshman class to incarceration this year,” Kornbluth acknowledges.  “Yes, it’s an unfortunate outcome for those individuals and their families, but let’s count our blessings.  In Texas, where the death penalty is in force, these students would literally be toast.  If GOTCHA! existed in the Lone Star State, there wouldn’t be an undergraduate left alive at Texas A&M.  Hell, those kids use AI to script their moans during sex.”

“We’re doing things the right way, here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Kornbluth asserts.  “Nobody knows AI better than AI.”

BREAKING NEWS:  In Fall 2027, Wyoming will become the nation’s first state in which it is impossible for an undergraduate to major in Philosophy (Chronicle of Higher Education Daily Briefing, July 27th online).  

One of the saddest repercussions of this development is the likely shutting down of the annual “Philosophers’ Rodeo Days” in Cody, Wyoming.  Established in 1952 by Chester Stybell, a cattle rancher who obtained his B. A. in Philosophy from the University of Wyoming in 1930, the rodeo was open to Philosophy majors from all over the state. 

The three-day event in July features typical rodeo competitions such as bull riding, calf roping, and barrel racing.  In addition, contestants analyze classic philosophical brainteasers (e.g., “What is the soul?”  “Does altruism truly exist?” “Can you really be friends with your ex-spouse?”  “Why is a wild pitch in baseball not recorded as an error?”) while navigating — blindfolded and on horseback — a full-scale re-creation of Plato’s Cave.

Carson Stybell, Chester’s son (B. A. in Philosophy, University of Wyoming, 1961), took over the rodeo in 1993 after his dad suffered a fatal aneurysm while sitting on the back porch trying to figure out whether a Mobius Strip has one side or two.  Stybell the Younger informed reporters that attendance at the event has been declining steadily over the past two decades: “The high-water mark for the rodeo was 1998, when we had over 800 contestants and a three-day total of nearly 15,000 attendees.  This year, only 27 philosopher cowboys showed up and we didn’t even sell 600 tickets over the three days.  It’s a damn shame.  Thank God my dad didn’t live long enough to see this; it would have broken his heart.  Where else in America can you find rodeo clowns dressed as Socrates, Aristotle, and John Rawls?”

Where else, indeed?