PROVIDENCE — Professor Roberto Serrano of Brown University identified widespread use of artificial intelligence on his ECON 1170 midterm exam in March 2026, leading to 27 students dropping the course. Of those who dropped, 22 had achieved a perfect score on the exam, prompting an academic integrity investigation.

Serrano, who teaches the advanced undergraduate mathematical economics course, stated that some submitted answers contained passages consistent with results generated by ChatGPT. He noted that the AI produced a convoluted argument for a problem with a simpler proof, and this specific reasoning appeared in dozens of student exams.

The midterm exam, held on March 5, 2026, was changed to a take-home, closed-book format. Out of 86 students who took the exam, 40 scored 100, and the class average was 96. This contrasted with previous years where the average score typically ranged between 65 and 80. Serrano told his students that if they had used AI to complete the exam, only their final exam grade would be counted.

Serrano addressed the class after reviewing the exam results. "If you did this, if you just press a button to ask an AI agent to do this for you, you're showing to be completely irrelevant," Serrano said. He questioned the students' motivations, stating, "So my question to you is, why are you here? Why are you at a university if you refuse to learn, you refuse to work hard, if you refuse to put in the necessary effort to develop critical thinking?" Serrano also said, "If all you're doing is just pressing a button to do to have this machine do the work for you, then you think you need a Brown degree for that?"

After Serrano's address, 27 students withdrew from ECON 1170. Subsequently, 59 students took the in-person final exam, where the class average was 48 out of 100, and 19 students failed. Serrano sent evidence of the alleged cheating to Brown University's dean of the college and provost and escalated the case to the Academic Code Committee. The committee issued a note describing the incident as "a wake-up call." Serrano holds the Harrison S. Kravis University Professorship in Economics.

Why It Matters

The disparity between the midterm and final exam results in ECON 1170 has raised questions about the impact of AI on academic integrity and student learning. The academic integrity investigation initiated by Serrano and the subsequent note from Brown University's Academic Code Committee indicate a formal institutional response to these issues.

Serrano received the King of Spain Prize for Economics in 2024 and serves as an editor at the journal Games and Economic Behavior. He said, "I believe the arrival of AI has been like a tsunami for all of us." He added, "If workers are just going to press a button to ask an AI agent to do the work for them, that's inscribing a world in which humanity has chosen to become idiots."