Personally, if you or your friend/relative is considering Columbia University now - just don't and ask them to reconsider. I can agree that this tool and the whole experiment can be seen as "immoral" by some, because... Well, no-one likes a cheater (and I am saying this as someone who uses WeMod in majority of single-player games I play). But this was not the point of it all, in my understanding.
The point was to show that the hiring process is flawed (as we all know, BTW). I mean, when Chloé Koers-Bourrat and Jerry Tohvan interviewed me for Smartly, we also used some online tool (don't think it was LeetCode, but don't remember exactly), I was sharing my screen and I was writing some code for a task, that I, objectively, would never get as a tech support. The purpose of it was not to see how I code, though, but to see how I think, especially when dealing with the unknown or unfamiliar, because that's the essence of the job.
Problem with modern HR is that a lot of automation is being used, practically "overused" if not "abused", that makes makes them forget the "H" part, that is "Human". I understand *why* automation is required, especially for larger companies, but you should not rely just on it, if you really want a good company fit and not building your own siloed russia or north korea, where no small difference from the norm is allowed. The experiment just highlighted this for a 100000th time.
By kicking out Chungin because Amazon said so, Columbia just says that they do not care about "human" in any aspect of *their* existence, and last time I checked the purpose of education system(s) is not just to teach skills, but also to teach being "good human". I guess in Columbia this means "submit to Jeff Bezos and corporate overlords". I guess for them it means "sell your soul and individuality to the highest bidder". I guess it means "trump is our god no matter how full of incoherence he is".
And, hey, to each - their own, but if I had a kid I would strongly encourage them to go anywhere else or even skip university entirely, since nowadays a degree's value is dropping further and further. Unless you are showing it to robots, that is and not actual professionals.
