AI Smart Glasses and the Future of Academic Integrity in a Postplagiarism Era

Abstract

Using AI glasses as a focal case, we examine challenges wearable technology pose to teaching, assessment, and academic integrity. We argue that treating AI glasses as cheating devices overlooks their potential for accessibility and cognitive support while failing to address the structural disruption these technologies bring to education. Current enforcement models to detect academic misconduct rely on observable behaviours and verifiable evidence, at least on the balance of probability. The discreteness of AI glasses, combined with increasing prevalence of wearable technology for medical use, disrupts these established enforcement models, while simultaneously increasing the risk of unequal scrutiny and procedural injustice. We argue that a shift away from technological prohibition toward rethinking assessment and pedagogical design and policy reform may be more constructive and learner centred. In a postplagiarism era, academic integrity can be sustained by creating learning environments in which using AI to cheat becomes pedagogically irrelevant.