Igor Chirikov is a senior researcher at UC Berkeley's Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE). He authored a May 2026 eScholarship paper that documented a measurable rise in top grades in AI-exposed college courses after the release of ChatGPT, work covered in the Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2026.
Grade-inflation study
The study drew on more than 500,000 grades from 2018 to 2025 at a large Texas public university that publishes course syllabi and grade distributions. Chirikov found that after ChatGPT's late-2022 launch, AI-exposed classes — in the humanities, engineering, and writing- or coding-heavy subjects — gave out roughly 30% more A's than non-AI-exposed classes. The effect was strongest in take-home and homework-heavy classes. Before 2022, the two groups showed little difference.
Positions and statements
Chirikov has framed the findings around a distinction between productivity and learning. He told the Wall Street Journal that "AI may be helping people become more productive, to produce more, [but] I think it may harm their learning," and that "Learning requires productive struggle that is eroded by AI" (Source: 'A' Grades Are Suddenly Everywhere Since the Arrival of ChatGPT (WSJ, May 13 2026) — Chirikov UC Berkeley study).
His empirical work has been treated as evidence on the skill-acquisition side of the deskilling thesis, alongside the Lancet endoscopist-deskilling study on the skill-retention side.
Relationships
- author-of: AI-exposed grade-inflation study (UC Berkeley CSHE eScholarship, May 13 2026)
- related: AI Grade Inflation (anchor concept page), AI Deskilling, AI in Education, Education — AI Deployment, 'A' Grades Are Suddenly Everywhere Since the Arrival of ChatGPT (WSJ, May 13 2026) — Chirikov UC Berkeley study