That is laziness at its finest. There will be always students that trying cutting corners. I think it happens because of lack of understanding what really is the sole propose of education.
The thing is - if one is cheating now, one will have to cheat all the time. It really easy like that. Ones stupid actions and laziness today - affects tomorrow.
I really hope the student actually learned the lesson, I really do.
I do as well.
I also think that to some extent, there's a failure of the system if it presents to the student the idea that this is a viable strategy for jumping through the hoop of a test. We don't give tests in ways that truly test understanding; we tend to give tests in ways that prove the ability to retain and regurgitate information, and in many cases we set up situations where it's not stupidity or laziness, but rather necessity: "I'm working two jobs, my kids are hungry, and I'm expected to spend two hours sitting here regurgitating information -- I have to find a strategy to get this done faster. I know I know the information, I just don't have time to perform it for the teacher."
I know that's a realistic situation, because I've lived it. Except I didn't have ChatGPT, and instead my work and my parental skills suffered for it.
I do think the student learned a lesson from it. I also hope that our pedagogical system learns a lesson from the whole "threat" of GPT as well.
I myself worked during my studies, classes were from morning to late evening, so I could only work on weekends and nights. I know that if I could just focus on studying and workshops - my skills would be incomparably higher.
Except that I studied sculpture. If I make a rubbish sculpture or a lousy drawing, I can only offend someone else's sense of aesthetics.
But think of people who study medicine, psychology, social sciences, civil engineers. In such cases, lack of knowledge and qualifications can cost others their health or even their lives. This is what scares me the most.