How do you make sure that kids aren’t using artificial intelligence tools to cheat on their final exams? Easy, just flip the off switch. According to Bloomberg, Chinese AI companies have shut down their AI chatbots, rendering them unavailable while students across the country take their annual college entrance exams.
Popular chatbots including Alibaba’s Qwen and ByteDance’s Doubao have blocked photo recognition features from being used to identify and answer questions related to the test, while Tencent’s Yuanbao and Moonshot’s Kimi have cut access to photo recognition tools entirely during dedicated exam hours. The Guardian reported the same is true of DeepSeek.
When students ask the chatbots why they can no longer use the features, they are told, “To ensure the fairness of the college entrance examinations, this function cannot be used during the test period,” per Bloomberg. If they try to upload an image or ask for help solving an exam question, the chatbots inform them it is “not in compliance with rules.”
While the shutdown of AI features seems to be basically universal across all companies offering such services, it doesn’t appear that any of the companies made public announcements of these restrictions. Instead, according to The Guardian, word of the lack of availability has been driven primarily by students on social media—many of whom are freaking out about their inability to use the tools—and other users annoyed by being cut off from the features. “College entrance exam candidates, you are all shit,” one Weibo post spotted by The Guardian read. “I can’t use DeepSeek to upload pictures, I have to download ChatGPT again, I hope you all go to community college.”
The exam period for these students in China is no joke. The exam, known as “gaokao” is a three-day affair that high school students are put through in hopes of getting a spot at one of the country’s universities, which have limited spots available. An estimated 13.3 million students will take the exams this year. The exam lasts about nine hours, split across three days, and students are not allowed to use their phones or laptops during the testing period. (That is probably enough to prevent kids from accessing AI tools, but China isn’t taking any chances there.)
While the kids can’t use AI during the exam, it seems the administrators of the test can. China Daily reported that some testing sites are utilizing AI surveillance systems that are designed to flag “irregular behavior” like students whispering to one another or making repeated glances that might not be spotted by the human proctor.