TIFU by letting an AI voice assistant blare out during my final oral college exam

So, today was the final, ultimate oral exam of my college degree. Since I’m studying remotely from abroad, I had to take it via a video call.

I wanted to make a good impression. I woke up in the morning, put on a crisp white shirt, grabbed my mug, and sat in front of my laptop. The plan was simple: I had my phone set up right next to me with an AI assistant ready to help me if I got stuck on some theory or logic.

To be absolutely safe, I turned down the system volume on my phone. Every slider was at zero. Or so I thought.

The exam started. First, we had to solve some written practical problems, which I did. But then came the oral part, where the professors started grilling me with questions based on those tasks. I stealthily prompted the AI on my phone to help me structure one of the answers.

What I didn't realize was that the AI assistant app had its own, separate media volume override.

Instead of a discreet text response, my phone suddenly channels its inner auctioneer and starts loudly, confidently, and clearly blaring out the explanation straight into my microphone. In a quiet room. Right in front of the examination board.

The professors instantly freeze. I freeze. My soul leaves my body. I have never fumbled a mute button so fast in my entire life. It was the most agonizingly embarrassing "caught red-handed" moment possible.

I thought I was completely done for. I expected them to just fail me on the spot. But instead of kicking me out immediately, they just stared, and decided to push further, throwing a bunch of other, completely different questions at me just to see if I actually knew anything myself.

Adrenaline kicked in. In pure survival mode, I actually managed to stammer out some decent answers and solve the follow-up questions on my own. They didn't fail me right there and just moved on to the next student. Our college never tells us the grades immediately, but since they didn't execute me on the spot and let me finish, I think I might have actually scraped by with a passing grade.

TL;DR: Tried to ensure I pass my remote college exam by using an AI assistant on my phone with the volume "turned off." After the written problems, during the oral follow-up questions, the AI overrode the system mute and shouted the answers directly into the microphone. Had to solo-survive the rest of the exam on pure adrenaline.