[i_am_proteus]

People bring in second phones: one to have confiscated, one to use on the exam.

A common mode I have seen is phone in lap, front-facing camera ingests an exam page hung over the edge of the desk. Student then flips the page and looks down for the answer.

[djoldman]

It's relatively straightforward to immediately suspend test takers for a semester and expel them on a second infraction.

Administrations won't allow it because they just don't care enough. It's a pain dealing with complaining parents and students.

In any case, cheating has existed since forever. There is nothing much new about cheating in in-class exams now with AI than before without.

[refulgentis]

I am amenable to this argument (am GP), however I do think this is unique.

AI is transformative here, in toto, in the total effect on cheating, because its the first time you can feasibly "transfer" the question in with a couple muscle-memory taps. I'm no expert, but I assume there's a substantive difference between IDing someone doing 200 thumb taps for ~40 word question versus 2.

(part I was missing personally was that they can easily have a second phone. same principle as my little bathroom-break-cheatsheet in 2005 - can't find what's undeclared, they're going to be averse to patting kids down)

[pragma_x]

Seems easy to thwart with two exam proctors, one at each end of the exam room. Hypothetically, the whole affair is going for maximum manual effort (grading), so why not double down on test-taking labor too?

[i_am_proteus]

It's thwartable with adequate proctoring. I know about this mode because I found students doing it, and the students in question endured substantial academic consequences.

Large lectures have hundreds of students, and to properly proctor an exam for one of these classes, one needs dozens of proctors.

It can be done, but observe: for most faculty, maintaining the integrity of their course does not aid them on the path to tenure/advancement.