01 // THE NEW REALITY
Late night work goes digital
It is 11:00 PM on a weekday. For students, this hour usually signals the peak of academic stress from assignments deadline and examination, along with the sound of keyboard typing, textbook flipping and calculators clicking. But tonight, for thousands of undergraduates, the room is particularly quiet. The struggle has been outsourced.
With a few keystrokes, complete solutions appear on screen, generated in seconds. The doubt surrounding this digital assistance is vanishing in a blink of an eye.
According to a report by the South China Morning Post in July 2025, the taboo has broken at the highest level: at least 9 out of 16 top scorers in this year's DSE exams openly admitted to using AI tools like ChatGPT or DeepSeek during their preparation. It is no longer a secret weapon, but a standard equipment.
02 // THE CHOICES
Blindly Chasing or Fleeing AI: Hong Kong Students' University Choices in 2024
We collected data on local student habits, and the results strictly challenge the "lazy student" stereotype often pushed by older generations. The primary motivation isn't to avoid work; it is to survive it. In Hong Kong's hyper competitive education system, efficiency is the most valuable currency.
A 2024 survey by The Standard revealed that AI trends now influence students' university subject choices, causing them choosing subjects blindly, 84% of students consider choosing subjects and jobs that are not easily replaced by AI; 66% of students blindly moving towards AI related fields, while not familiar in AI related topics.
The supervisor of HKFYG Andy Chan Ying-kit also said "Students should not blindly follow the trend of AI. They should have a thorough understanding of the content of each subject and make decisions after careful consideration."
However, although the technology improved the student efficiecny in studying, there is another concerns awaits them in every semester: the moment they click "submit" on assignment, the same technology they rely on becomes their biggest enemy.
03 // THE DETECTION ARMS RACE
The "Turnitin" Paranoia
This convenience comes with a heavy psychological price. Every assignment submission is now a gamble. Universities across Hong Kong have deployed aggressive AI detection software, most notably Turnitin, to flag non-human writing.
According to Turnitin's own 2024 global data, roughly 17% of all submissions contained over 20% AI-generated content. But the software is not perfect, creating a climate of paranoia. "I wrote my essay myself, but I was terrified to submit it," says a Year 4 Computer Science student. "What if the machine flags me?" This fear has birthed a bizarre new habit: students are now using AI to humanize their own writing, deliberately inserting errors or simplifying vocabulary to avoid being accused of cheating.
04 // THE HALLUCINATION TRAP
When the Machine Lies
The most dangerous pitfall, however, is blind trust. In November 2025, the SCMP reported a significant academic scandal involving a PhD paper at HKU that contained fictitious AI-generated references.
The AI had "hallucinated", like inventing books, authors, and page numbers that simply did not exist to satisfy the user's prompt. This happens because students fundamentally misunderstand the technology. They treat the chatbot as a search engine, which retrieves facts, rather than a Large Language Model, which predicts the most probable next word. When an AI doesn't know the answer, it often makes one up with total confidence.
05 // SYSTEM UPDATE
Government Intervention
Recognizing that the tide cannot be turned back by bans alone, the Education Bureau has pivoted its strategy from regulation to active integration. The government is now putting money on the table to ensure Hong Kong doesn't fall behind.
The newly launched "AI for Science Education" funding programme now offers secondary schools up to HK$100,000 each. The money is earmarked for purchasing AI software licenses and, crucially, for training teachers who are often less tech savvy than their students. This move effectively ends the "ban" era. The government is signaling that AI literacy is no longer optional, but a core skill.
06 // POLICY CHAOS
Adapt or Perish
Universities are scrambling to update their codes of conduct to match this new reality. The shift has been dramatic. In 2023, many institutions threatened expulsion for AI use. Today, HKU has moved to provide enterprise grade generative AI tools to staff and students directly, a stark 180-degree turn.
But while they give students the tools, they are changing how they test them. To ensure students are still learning, assessment methods are regressing to the pre digital age. Oral defenses and in-class handwriting exams are returning to fashion. It is a paradox: to accommodate the most futuristic technology, education is returning to the most ancient forms of testing.
07 // THE FUTURE
The User Logs
To understand the human side of this data, we looked beyond the statistics and spoke directly to the users. We interviewed two HKBU students from different backgrounds to see what is their view and how they leverage this technology.
Their voices, recorded below, offer a raw glimpse into the daily reality of the "AI Generation." They represent the two sides of the coin: the student using AI to survive the workload, and the developer teaching the AI to be smarter.
