The slopification of our society

We are currently living through a golden age of cheating.

In universities and high schools across the globe, the abuse of AI is rampant. Professors are on the front lines, watching helplessly as large percentages of their classes use generative AI to write essays and complete assignments. When they take these cases to the administration, they are often met with a shrug. After all, why expel an international student paying $45,000 a year in tuition when the school desperately needs the money?

But the epidemic of cheating goes far beyond ChatGPT in the classroom. It reveals a fundamental flaw in how our society rewards success, the hidden psychology of corporate climbers, and the terrifying reality of what happens when the people we trust with our lives take shortcuts.

A Fake Map and No Compass

Recently, a college instructor went on a Reddit forum dedicated to cheating and asked a simple question: “I’m just wondering why you guys do this… Why not just do your assignments?”

The most profound response didn’t come from a student, but from an orthopedic surgeon. The surgeon pointed out that people who cheat the system are ultimately scamming themselves out of the only thing they are actually paying for: the ability to handle pressure and master a complex subject.

College and graduate school aren’t just about obtaining a piece of paper; they are a crucible designed to build the discipline to show up and do the work when things get incredibly difficult. If you bypass that process, you are walking into the workforce with a “fake map and no compass.”

This matters because, eventually, you will be in a situation where someone is relying entirely on your expertise, and there will be no AI to save you. Imagine being a doctor on a remote boat when a passenger suddenly starts vomiting violently. You have to figure out if it’s heatstroke, alcohol poisoning, or a ruptured appendix. In a life-or-death situation, AI can only give you shallow, generalized information. It cannot give you the deep, internalized knowledge required to save a life.

The Societal ROI of Cheating

If cheating ultimately hollows out our competence, why do so many people do it?

The uncomfortable truth is that people cheat because it works. We live in a world with a bizarrely skewed consequence system: if you steal a $30,000 car, you go to jail. If you steal $100 million, you might get a fine. If you steal a billion dollars, you might just get a government bailout.

In the corporate and academic worlds, the people who get ahead aren’t always the ones doing the hardest work. They are the charismatic group members who do nothing but take credit for the final presentation. They are the executives who climb the ladder by claiming their subordinates’ ideas as their own. They are the founders who inflate their numbers to secure funding.

Look no further than the infamous “Forbes 30 Under 30 to Prison Pipeline.” Over the last decade, an alarming number of celebrated young founders—from Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX) to Charlie Javice (Frank) to Martin Shkreli (Retrophin)—have ended up facing federal prison time for massive financial fraud. Society often elevates these individuals because their cheating looks like “hustle.” They optimize the system, getting the maximum reward for the minimum legitimate labor.

The Successful Sociopath

When we think of people who ruthlessly cheat and manipulate others to get ahead, we are often talking about sociopathic traits. But our societal understanding of sociopathy is heavily skewed by a massive selection bias: almost all of our psychological research on sociopathy comes from studying prison populations.

Why? Because prisons are the only places where researchers have easy access to a large, captive sample size of sociopaths. However, this means we are only studying the unsuccessful sociopaths—the ones who lacked the intelligence, impulse control, or resources to get away with their crimes.

The most effective sociopaths in the world are not in prison. They are running companies, working in investment banking, or holding political office. The difference between a sociopath in a jail cell and a sociopath in a boardroom usually comes down to two traits: conscientiousness and greed. The “smart” cheater knows exactly when to stop. They keep their narcissism in check, fly under the radar, and take just enough to get ahead without drawing attention.

The Terrifying Reality of the “Smart” Cheater

To understand the difference between a stupid cheater and a smart cheater, look at the recent United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) scandal.

The USMLE is a rigorous series of board exams that dictate a medical graduate’s career trajectory. In 2024, the National Board of Medical Examiners invalidated over 800 scores, largely tied to a testing center in Nepal. Investigators uncovered an unprecedented cheating ring where test-takers had access to a massive document containing live exam questions.

The people who were caught were the greedy ones. They were scoring in the 99th percentile, answering complex 90-second clinical scenarios in 15 seconds with 100% accuracy. The statistical anomaly of so many perfect scores coming out of one small testing center triggered an investigation.

But here is the chilling part: what about the smart cheaters?

For every test-taker who greedily scored a 280 and got caught, there was likely a highly conscientious cheater who purposely answered questions wrong to score a perfectly respectable, inconspicuous 235. They flew under the radar. They didn’t get greedy. And because they optimized the system without drawing attention, those individuals may very well be practicing medicine in hospitals today, operating with a fake map and no compass.

The Bottom Line

Cheating is, at its core, an exercise in brutal efficiency. It is the pursuit of the fruits of labor without the labor itself. But while this optimization might secure a degree, a promotion, or a massive buyout, it comes at a steep hidden cost.

A society built by successful cheaters is a hollow one. It relies on a facade of competence that eventually crumbles the moment real pressure is applied. So while the system may temporarily reward the shortcut, true, deep expertise remains the only thing that can actually keep the ship afloat when the storm hits.

Sources

Medscape (2024). US Board Discloses Cheating, Grads Say Problem Is Rampant
Med School Insiders (2024). 2024 Nepal USMLE Cheating Scandal Explained
Fast Company (2024). Another Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree could be headed to prison
Boston University Review of Banking & Financial Law (2023). “30 Under 30” Pipeline to Prison
Taylor & Francis / Deviant Behavior (2019/2021). Are Prisoners More Psychopathic than Non-forensic Populations? Profiling Psychopathic Traits among Prisoners, Community Adults, University Students, and Adolescents (Boduszek et al.)