A Los Angeles high school English teacher’s routine grading session took a shocking turn when his lowest-performing students began turning in flawless A-grade essays – all at once.
Dustin Stevenson’s suspicions were soon confirmed after one of his students revealed the secret.
The culprit wasn’t an underground website or a secret group chat but Google Lens, a tool embedded directly into every student’s school-issued Chromebook.
Students simply hover over a test or essay question and instantly receive AI-generated answers – all without switching tabs or typing a single word.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Stevenson said Mercury News. ‘It’s hard enough to teach in the age of AI, and now we have to navigate this?’
For Stevenson and other educators across the country, the discovery marks a turning point in what they describe as an escalating battle against invisible academic dishonesty.
What began as a tool to identify plants or translate signs had become an academic disruptor.
The latest version of Lens allows a floating AI ‘bubble’ to appear on screen, scanning and interpreting anything within its range.
