China shuts down AI tools during national 'gaokao' exams to prevent cheating

Major artificial intelligence (AI) companies in China have temporarily disabled some AI tools, including picture recognition, to prevent students from cheating in this year’s national college entrance examinations, known as the “gaokao”.

Bloomberg reported that during exam hours on Jun. 7 to 10, China’s most popular AI chatbots, including Alibaba’s Qwen, Tencent’s Yuanbao, Moonshot’s Kimi and ByteDance’s Doubao, have restricted photo recognition services.

Though some photo recognition functions were available, the chatbots declined to answer questions that accompanied photos of test papers.

Tencent’s chatbot attributed the restrictions to protecting the integrity of the “gaokao”.

“Dear user, to ensure the fairness of gaokao, this function is unavailable during gaokao hours. Tencent Yuanbao wishes gaokao sitters all success in the exams,” the chatbot would reply when photos of test papers were uploaded during exam hours, as quoted by The Washington Post.

Collateral damage

The Guardian noted that though none of the tech firms have made official statements, the restrictions on AI tools were mainly publicised by university students when they could not access the AI tools they relied upon for schoolwork.

“College entrance exam candidates, you are all shit,” one Weibo user retorted.

“I can’t use DeepSeek to upload pictures, I have to download ChatGPT again, I hope you all go to community college​​​​.”

Ramping up anti-cheating measures

Held annually over multiple days in June, the “gaokao”, which saw 13.35 million applicants this year, serves as the key determinant of university admissions for high school seniors.

As such, to prevent cheating during the high-stakes exam, multiple regions across China had announced plans to roll out an AI-based surveillance system to prevent and detect cheating in this year’s “gaokao”, the Global Times reported in May.

With the system in place, an AI algorithm is reportedly able to compare footage from classroom cameras against 40 models of abnormal behaviour.

Yet, despite concerns that AI will provide students with a new means of cheating, China’s education minister Huai Jinpeng has affirmed the opportunities that it could bring.

Xinhua reported that on Mar. 5, Huai announced a white paper on AI education that is set to be released sometime this year, as part of efforts to equip students with digital and AI literacy.

“Every major technological revolution and industrial transformation places significant demands on society, especially on education, while bringing major opportunities for reform and development,” said Huai.

Top image via China News 中国新闻网/Facebook