Kicked out of Columbia, this student doesn’t plan to stop trolling big tech with AI
A computer science student at Columbia University said he has been kicked out by the school after he built an artificial intelligence tool to cheat in tech job interviews and documented the fallout online.
A computer science student at Columbia University said he has been kicked out by the school after he built an artificial intelligence tool to cheat in tech job interviews and documented the fallout online.
Chungin “Roy” Lee, a second-year undergraduate, garnered online attention after he claimed to have fooled four of the world’s biggest companies using Interview Coder, a desktop app he created to discreetly solve technical coding questions.
In a now-removed YouTube video, Lee 21, recorded himself using the tool during an internship interview with Amazon. His app, which he said took only four days to build, allows users to take screenshots of problems without being detected by their browsers. It then processes the images using AI to spit out solutions in real time.
Roy Lee uploaded a now-deleted video to YouTube showcasing how he used Interview Coder during an interview with Amazon.Courtesy Roy LeeIt was a stunt that highlighted the proliferation of generative AI technology in everything from schoolwork to technical jobs, as users discover new tools to help them cover for their lack of skill or knowledge or to otherwise enhance their abilities. As such tools advance, schools and workplaces have struggled to accurately detect their use.“I think 99% people probably haven’t realized how far-reaching this could be,” Lee told NBC News. “In the past, you could have built an invisible desktop assistant, and you also could have used LLMs [large language models] to solve problems. But now that people are putting the two together, I think no form of online assessment is safe.”
Lee, who is in New York City, said he got the internship offer from Amazon this year. In February, he went online to broadcast that he “used AI to pass my Amazon Interview.” (The video got about 100,000 views before YouTube removed it, citing a copyright claim by Amazon.)
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