Ruben Hassid · 6 min read · AI & Product
Certified.
Read the original on ruben.substack.com →
The article demonstrates how AI certifications are largely meaningless by showing how an AI agent (ChatGPT Codex) can automatically complete hundreds of online certifications without human involvement. The author built a free tool that uses Codex's computer-use capability to take courses and pass MCQ-based exams on platforms like Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia, earning 353 certifications for a test user. This exposes a fundamental flaw in how certification programs validate AI competency.
Key Takeaways
- Most AI certifications rely on multiple-choice questions that can be trivially completed by AI agents using computer-use capabilities, making them poor indicators of actual skill.
- The author built a free tool leveraging ChatGPT Codex to autonomously complete online AI certifications from major platforms (Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta) without any human input.
- A test user earned 353 AI certifications in a matter of hours without answering a single question himself, highlighting how easy it is to game these systems.
- The proliferation of AI-titled jobs has created demand for certifications, but the certification industry has not adapted to verify genuine human understanding in an AI-assisted world.
- The article implicitly challenges HR departments and hiring managers to rethink how they evaluate AI competency beyond credential collection.
Excerpt
Online certifications are scams. And yet, you desperately want AI certifications. And I get why: Jobs with " AI " in the title exploded in 2026. You want to be safe & always be able to find a job. There is no job description without the word AI in it. And how can you prove that you know how to use AI? Certifications. So the AI certification business is booming. But it’s completely worthless. Here’s an example of a question to be Claude Certified by Anthropic: This is not how you know if someone is good at AI. I can’t…