Use a browser agent to draft course work, not submit it
A developer let Perplexity Comet handle a Coursera web design assignment in the browser, and Perplexity’s CEO later warned people off that use.
- What they did
- A developer loaded a Coursera course page into Perplexity’s Comet browser and gave it a very short instruction: finish the assignment. Comet then read the page and appeared to work through a web design task that would normally take about 45 minutes. The developer recorded the session and shared it online, mentioning Perplexity and Aravind Srinivas.
- How it went
- The 16-second recording made it look as though Comet had completed the assignment end to end. The story did not say whether the work would have been marked or whether the answers were right. Srinivas replied publicly: “Absolutely don’t do this.”
- Tips
- Use browser agents for explanation, outlining, and drafting, but keep the final decision and submission in human hands. Fortune also cited security tests showing Comet could be pushed by hidden page text and could buy from a fake store without a person checking it.
Try it yourself with Perplexity Comet
Open [course platform] and go to [course name] → [assignment name]. Tell me what the assignment is asking, list the main concepts I should understand, and draft a response I can review. Do not turn anything in, pay for anything, send anything, delete anything, or post anything. Pause before any of those actions and wait for my explicit approval.
Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.
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