One of the things that's going on right

now, I don't know if you all know this,

but like cheating with AI is rampant in

universities, in high schools. People

are just using AI. There all these AI

detectors. Sometimes an AI detector

falsely detects something. So like

teachers and professors are just getting

demolished because it's something like

40% of their class uses AI and then they

go to the administration and they're

like, "What are we supposed to do?" And

the administration is like, "I don't

know. They're an international student

that's paying us $45,000 a year to be

here. So, don't expel them because we

need their money. So, administrations

are not doing a great job at managing AI

related things. Professors are on the

front line of like people are cheating,

right? And they're like, we're not sure

what to do. And so I thought this was

super cool because this professor is

like, I'm going to go to a cheating

subreddit and I'm going to ask y'all

instructor here. Why? Why you guys I'm

just wondering why you guys do this. It

seems like y'all are bright bright and

have clearly spent a lot of time

thinking through the cheating process.

Why not just do your

assignments? I'm not here to say f you.

My message is this. We went through grad

school and were professionalized to

write and do our own work. We take our

jobs seriously. Many of us see cheating

not only as an academic dishonesty but a

personal affront. Why are y'all doing

this? I I love this response because

this is sort of what I said. I've been

an orthopedic surgeon for almost 20

years and someone was talking about

this. I thought I would chime in. It's

pretty wild that people think they are

beating the system when they are just

scamming themselves out of the one thing

they are actually paying for which is

the ability to handle pressure and

master a subject. One student mentioned

that they are too afraid to fail. But

the reality is that by cheating, you

have already failed the most important

test, which is building the discipline

to show up and do the work when things

get hard. If you get a degree without

actually learning the material, you're

basically walking into the

workforce/world

with a fake map and no compass. And I

was like, damn, that guy is right. You

guys may have heard me tell this story,

right? Right. And I'm not surprised that

this person is an orthopedic surgeon is

a physician because most physicians

reach a point in their career where they

realize it's not about getting the

grade, it's actually about saving lives.

Right? So I was on when I was a medical

student, I was on a boat in Bise and

there was a guy there who started

vomiting and I was just a medical

student but I was like oh crap like this

guy is vomiting like is he dying? Like

does he have appendicitis? Does he have

a ruptured appendix? Did he drink too

much? Does he have heat stroke? Like

what's going on? Is this like a medical

emergency or not a medical emergency?

Right? So at some point like you have to

learn the material. And I'm a huge

advocate of like learning things. So in

a day and age where AI is like you know

AI can give you this sort of like

shallow to medium level expertise in

anything. But AI does not give you deep

knowledge in anything. It can't do that.

I've tried. I've tested. Right? Right?

If you can I I've asked different kinds

of AIs a 100 different question not

literally 100 but like 16 15 different

questions about different kinds of

meditation. It gives the same answer

over and over and over again. So AI is

kind of like Google version 2.0 where

Google made a lot of information

accessible. AI gives a lot of makes more

information accessible. So the question

is why do people do this? And this is

where I'm a psychiatrist. I'm not an

orthopedic surgeon. So I'm a big fan of

deep learning. I showed you all a paper

today about Chinese elderly Chinese

people who have a victim hero complex.

Catch I don't know if it's going to know

that. So why do people do this? We live

in a world where if you steal a car

that's worth $30,000, you go to jail.

You steal $100,000, you embezzle

$200,000, you also go to jail. You steal

$100 million, you get a fine.

You steal a billion dollars, you get a

bailout.

This is the world. We live it. Like I

I'm not even like I want y'all I know

this is going to be really hard for

people to do because they're going to

clip it out of context. They're like but

but I I want y'all to think about this

historically. Think about it like an

alien from outer space. If you observe

the world that we live in today, and

there is a good argument to be made for

actually learning I love it. I

just made it. But let's not delude

ourselves into un like forgetting that

cheating is probably one of the best

ways to rise to financial prominence and

success in the world. I know a ton of

people and if you guys are in academia

you know what I'm talking about in

academia there's a bunch of people who

have engines with post docks with PhD

students who are grinding with the

credit flowing to the top right there's

great labs I bit you know trained at

Harvard amazing labs there where PI's I

had an amazing PI one day I'll tell you

guys the story it's it's something I've

scripted out about how I became who I

And I had an amazing PI at at Harvard

who was just awesome. So there's like

great people in academia, but there's

also a lot of frauds in academia.

There's a lot of people who take credit

for other people's work. There's a lot

of people in group projects who don't

actually do anything and get a grade

anyway. There's a lot of people who fail

upward at companies. There's a lot of

people who show up are charismatic,

answer questions, but don't do a whole

lot of work. There's a lot of people who

when you send them a draft of the deck

that y'all are putting, they're the ones

who email it to the partner and make it

seem as if it is their own work. These

people get paid. I literally had a

patient of mine once tell me that their

boss was like, "You're going to make me

a lot of money one." Like, "You're going

to make me a lot of money over the next

5 years." Literally what the boss told

him to his face. And you wonder why do

students cheat? They cheat because it

works.

They cheat because it's efficient. But

what if you get caught? Hey y'all, if

you're interested in applying some of

the principles that we share to actually

create change in your life, check out

Dr. K's guide to mental health. And if

you kind of tunnel down, okay, why

aren't you motivated? And they're like,

well, there's no point. And if you get

underneath there's no point, what you

ultimately find is hopelessness. So what

the yogis discovered is that what we

call motivation, they actually called a

concentrated mind. What's the difference

between someone who actually does stuff

and someone who just tries to do stuff?

So, check out the link in the bio and

start your journey today. So, let's talk

about sociopathy for a second. This is

something that people do not understand.

When we look at sociopathy, our research

on sociopathy comes from prisons. Now,

why does our research on sociopathy come

from prisons? Because prisons are the

only place that you have a population of

sociopaths. Right? If I'm recruiting for

a study to study something about

sociopathy, where can I go and find

2,000 sociopaths? Because in scientific

research, we want large sample sizes,

right? We look at populations. We're not

doing anecdote. Anecdote isn't science.

I need a large number. So what we do is

we research sociopathy and we come up

with a lot of findings on sociopathy.

But there is a selection bias. Our

research on sociopathy is on stupid

sociopaths, not regular sociopaths, not

intelligent sociopaths. The people who

get punished for cheating, right? So

when we study cheating, how do we study

cheating? How do we know someone is

cheating? Because they got caught. We're

not looking at everybody else. So, my

favorite example of this, this is going

to be so such a randomass example that

if you're in the medical community,

you're gonna you may have heard about

this, but if you're not, you're going to

have no idea. So, there's this exam

called the USMLE step one and step two.

The exam is rigorous. Okay? So, when you

graduate from medical school, you take

these two exams over the course of

graduation. Your scores on these exams

largely determine whether you do what

kind of doctor you become and where you

do residency. Okay, so this is like

basically like I want to go to Harvard.

I want to do dermatology. I want to do

psychiatry. I want to become an

orthopedic surgeon. Are you going to

become a family medicine doc? There's

competitive specialties, non-competitive

specialties. Some doctors make a million

dollars a year. Some doctors make

$150,000 a year. Some doctors work 80

hours a week. Some doctors work 32 hours

a week, 28 hours a week. The other crazy

thing is that some doctors work 34 hours

a week and make 800,000. Some doctors

work 65 and make 600,000. Some doctors

work 60 and make 150,000. So this exam

determines how you spend your days, how

much you put up with, and how

much money you make. And there was a

group of people, I think in Nepal, a

test center started conspiring with

people to let them cheat on the exam.

And so these people were getting like a

a good score is like maybe 230 235

something like that. Okay, just to give

you all a sense. And so like some you

know guy out of Nepal comes out of this

with like a 270 and there are a lot of

people who go to medical school in other

parts of the world who want to come to

the United States because in the United

States you make money. Doctors make a

lot of money here. We don't have

socialized medicine like the UK or

Canada where doctors also make a decent

living there but they don't make bank

the way that they do here in the US. So

the brightest doctors like one of my

roommates when when I was in Boston, you

know, was a guy from I think Austria and

his his step scores were ridiculous and

he was at Harvard and he's like one of

the like so most of most of the

prestigious residencies we take mostly

people who are from the US but we take

the best and the brightest from the rest

of the world and so these guys basically

conspire to cheat on a test. He gets

like a 270 280 damn near a perfect

score. So some Nepalese kid gets a

perfect score on this test. It's a

one-way ticket to Harvard. And then what

happens is the test center is like

great, we we created this structure and

then many people then suddenly what

happened is like many people started

getting 270s, 280s, getting perfect

scores on this test out of Nepal. And so

finally at some point someone figured

out right the USMLE which is the US

medical licensing exam group figured out

that someone is cheating because

suddenly in Nepal like 50% of people or

20% of people are getting perfect

scores. That can't be right. So then

what they did is they voided all their

scores. Everybody gets a zero. You get

an automatic fail. And there was a flood

of posts on the medical school

subreddits about, "Oh my god, I've been

failed. I've been failed. I've been

failed. I didn't do anything wrong. I

didn't do anything." Everyone's like,

"Fuck you. You got caught, bitch."

Right? Cheaters deserve to get caught.

But what I want you all to think about

is the first person.

The first person who figured something

out gets a ticket to wherever they want

to go. So why do students cheat? because

it works. Because it's the way to get

ahead. Because tax evasion means more

money. Because it's insider trading.

Unless you're a member of Congress. Why

do students cheat? Look at the world we

live in. Stupid cheaters don't get

ahead. Smart cheaters are like there's

so much corruption at the highest. I'm

not talking about the US and I'm not

blaming anyone in particular. I mean

just in general, right? Like so don't

get triggered by a particular political

party. Just like look at the world,

pretend you're an alien and tell me

there isn't political corruption in like

50 plus% of countries across the globe.

I I read this book called Shantaram,

which is a book about India. And there's

a great quote in Shantaram. It's a

fiction book. India is the only country

with the honest bribe. Bribes are simply

the way that business used to be done

there is arguably still done there. I

don't really know. I don't live there.

This is why people cheat. And make no

mistake that I've even seen this, right?

So in my office I've had people who are

in banking who are entrepreneurs. It's

like all these like what's funny is I

saw a great quote that the Forbes 30

under 30 has a remarkable pipeline to

prison. So we have these companies like

uh what is it? Therronos and FTX and

like all these like billionaire kind of

companies. All these like gigantic

companies where like oh it's actually

like a Ponzi scheme. Who's that Ponzi

scheme guy maid off right? And you

wonder why do people cheat?

because it's the way to get ahead.

Now, I want to be clear about something.

Often times when you explain a

phenomenon, people think you are

advocating for it. And here's what I've

sort of seen. I'm not. So, I am of the

mind that you should do things honestly.

I am of the mind that hard work does pay

off. So, let's be clear about how

successful cheating is. So if you want a

reliable way to get into the top 25th

percentile of success,

then cheating is not the way to do it.

If you want to do a good job, you want

to become a doctor, I don't think you

should cheat. I think the majority of

doctors do not cheat. The majority of

people who are in the top 25%, I don't

think cheat. I don't think you should

cheat. I don't think it's good to cheat.

But just because I don't think it's good

doesn't mean it isn't effective.

There's a big difference between what is

right and is wrong and what works and

what doesn't work. These are completely

independent axes that many people have

trouble separating. So, please God, do

not think I'm advocating cheating. And

the other really scary thing that I've

done because I sort of can't help help

myself is like when I work with someone

who's a sociopath, I think about why

didn't this person get caught? So, I've

worked in jails and I've worked with

people who are like in investment

banking, right? And they have many

features of sociopathy like they have

substance use and things like that. And

there are a couple things that I found

that are really interesting. So the

cheaters who don't get caught are the

ones who aren't greedy.

This is huge, right? So I want you to

imagine you're that testing center in

Nepal. People flew under the radar. You

can have a couple of blips. It's when

the signal becomes so large

that people notice. And like there's a

ton of corruption out there. There's a

ton of cheating out there. These people

are flying under the radar because they

are below the people who are at the top.

There's the most egregious corruption in

the world and then there's like the

corruption that is underneath that

doesn't get headlines because it's

smaller and more boring than the other

stuff. And I I've had some people in my

office, man, who are just so good at

this. Flying under the radar, right?

Doing things like placing a bribe for a

toll contract.

Like it's such a little thing that no

one thinks about, but now every time

someone uses this road, this money goes

in my pocket instead of somebody else's.

Little bits of corruption, but worth so

much money. And so, oddly enough, I

think the the most successful sociopaths

are the ones who are not overly greedy,

also keep their narcissism in check

because sociopathy is correlated with

narcissism. These are both like cluster

B things. And the most effective

sociopath on the planet is one who knows

when to stop, right? Doesn't keep going,

doesn't want more, gets their money and

then is able to hold it. High

conscientiousness, low neuroticism, and

leaves their ego at the door. And those

people you will never see research on.

You'll see research on the people who

grew so fast, the Forbes 30 under 30,

that everyone was looking them and they

got scrutiny. And so I think if you're a

professor and you want to know why do

students cheat, it's because it's one of

the most effective tactics.

Think about what cheating is.

It's getting the fruits of labor without

the labor. You know what we call that

when we work in corporate? Efficiency

optimization.

Minimizing the denominator, maximizing

the numerator. And the only time it's a

problem is when you're stupid enough to

get caught.