University of California, Berkeley mathematics professor Richard Borcherds has said he no longer grades homework for correct answers, shifting credit toward completion as artificial intelligence makes it harder to tell whether students solved problems themselves.
The change does not eliminate homework. Students still receive assignments and credit for handing them in. The distinction is what that credit measures: completing the work rather than producing answers that could have been generated by an AI system.
Borcherds has described correctness-based grading as an incentive to use AI, putting students who do their own work at a disadvantage if others submit computer-generated solutions. He has also said that improving AI systems make characteristic mistakes less useful as clues to how an answer was produced.
His alternative puts greater weight on supervised, in-person exams where electronic devices are prohibited. He has said he does not regard completion-based homework credit as an ideal solution, but has not found a better one.
The approach concerns his assessment practices, not a university-wide decision to stop grading homework. Berkeley’s published guidance gives instructors a range of ways to handle generative AI, from requiring it for some work to prohibiting it.
The university’s Center for Teaching and Learning urges faculty to make course expectations clear. Its sample syllabus language includes courses that permit AI for research or limited assistance, courses that require acknowledgment of its use, and courses that forbid it on assignments or exams.
The same guidance includes short, in-person oral or written assessments as one possible response when unauthorized AI use is suspected. These are examples instructors can adapt, not a single policy imposed on every Berkeley class.
Borcherds is listed as the instructor for Berkeley’s fall 2026 graduate course in groups, rings and fields. The university lists the course as in-person instruction. His publicly described grading change leaves assignments in place while moving the main test of independent work into supervised exams.
JBizNews Desk | Berkeley, California
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