Columbia suspends student who created AI tool that helps people cheat in coding interviews
Columbia University has suspended the student who created an AI tool that helps job candidates cheat on technical interviews, according to disciplinary documents obtained by Business Insider.
However, it doesn’t appear his suspension was because of the tool itself.
According to the documents, the university’s stated reason was that Chungin “Roy” Lee, the founder behind the AI tool, had shared a recording of a disciplinary hearing and posted a photo featuring Columbia staff on social media.
On Wednesday, Columbia’s student conduct office informed Lee in a letter that his yearlong suspension was due to “publishing unauthorized documents” from a disciplinary hearing regarding his AI tool, Interview Coder.
The documents, some of which Lee posted on social media, said Lee had signed a form agreeing not to disclose his disciplinary record or record or post the hearing online.
“Update: I got kicked out!” Lee told BI after receiving the news.
A spokesperson for Columbia declined to comment.
Lee recently launched Interview Coder, an “invisible” AI tool for job candidates to cheat on technical questions during coding interviews. The startup sells access to the tool for $60 a month, and Lee told BI in an interview on Wednesday before learning of his suspension that he’s on track to make about $2 million a year in revenue.
He was pulled into the disciplinary conduct process at Columbia after being reported for creating the tool and posting videos of him using it to pass an Amazon interview in December, the university stated in documents.
Lee said he and his business partner read the academic handbook before creating and marketing the tool and verified that it couldn’t be by students to cheat on in-class assignments.
“Technical interviews are completely outside of what the university chooses to do, so it was really surprising that they decided to take any stance at all about this,” Lee told BI.
Lee said he attended a first hearing on February 17 “without any animosity” and thought the situation would “blow over.” However, he said he was asked during the meeting about “an extremely hypothetical” situation about where the AI tool could be used in class.
Before receiving the results of the first hearing, he submitted paperwork to take a leave of absence. He told BI he didn’t see “a universe where I finished school” anyway.
After the first disciplinary hearing, Lee was placed on probation after Columbia found him responsible for the facilitation of academic dishonesty based on a claim that the tool could be used to cheat on school exams where LeetCode is meant to be used, Columbia said in the documents viewed by BI.
“A week and a half later, and I’m completely kicked out from school,” Lee said in the LinkedIn post. “LOL!”
Lee said on LinkedIn that while it’s “an amazing story in hindsight,” he was “tweaking bad throughout” the process. Still, he said in the social media post, he’s glad he took the risk.
Before getting the official ruling, Lee told BI that if he were suspended, he planned to go “straight to San Francisco” — which he says was his plan all along.
