Written ethics assessments struggle to remain an authentic measure of achievement in higher education. With the increasing using of artificial intelligence based online tools to generate responses and edit written work, students often submit generic responses when they complete written ethics assessments. Unfortunately, such choices by students to use these tools leads to nondescript and generic responses lacking in depth and nuance – hallmarks of robust ethical thought, reasoning and engagement. As a result, submissions are now a measure of how well students can use these tools to appear, at best, fluent in ‘ethical dialogue’ and at worst, performative to achieve a grade. To adapt, the ways in which ethics concepts and theories are taught and assessed needs to diversify. This presentation will briefly describe the various ways in which ethics concepts and theories can been examined through assessment design, discussing how each are vulnerable to circumventing with the use of online tools. Next, it will be proposed that teaching and learning ethics concepts needs a return to ethical dialogue between persons. Ethics at its core is about being in relation to one another, education and assessment should include such a fundamental practice. Finally, combining verbal and written approaches in teaching and assessments is needed to best assess ethical competencies as we move forward. With a return to the fundamentals of ethics – engagement and conversation, this shift can contribute to reaffirming role and function of ethical reasoning and critical skill building in higher education.