I think you might be coming from a different socioeconomic perspective. The legions of C and B students would suggest that most kids do not have the means to buy someone else’s work.
As for the viability of an ai detector, if a human can’t recognize the difference in a fundamentally human dataset (language) there is no reason to suspect ML would be better suited to it. A watermarking scheme would be more effective.
I went to school in a lower income urban center. I think you underestimate the barter economy of lower income students in high schools. Money is not commonly used to trade. There are a lot of favors changing hands.
We used to trade bags of weed for student metro cards. Others trade lunch tickets for homework. I saw a student hand over their north face jacket and a cell phone to have someone else to take an AP exam for them. They later told their parents they were robbed on the way home.
As Jeff gold bloom would say: “life uhhh… finds a way.”
Re: watermarking, it’s exactly what I alluded to by “OpenAI May even expose this as a product.”
As for the viability of an ai detector, if a human can’t recognize the difference in a fundamentally human dataset (language) there is no reason to suspect ML would be better suited to it. A watermarking scheme would be more effective.