Should this course even exist? And should you take it?
This course isn’t about AI ethics. You probably shouldn’t learn ethics from a computer scientist; especially when ANU has a world-class philosophy department where you could go and take their ethics courses.
If you’re a conscientious objector to any/all AI use based on its potential to concentrate power in the hands of a few very large corporations, environmental footprint, potential for mis/disinformation and abuse, cavalier attitude towards intellectual property, effect on jobs and whole industries that I care a lot about or any other very real issues then I think you should probably have a think about whether this course is for you.
However, my (Ben, course author and convenor) position is that you might want to take Nam June Paik’s stance — “I use technology in order to hate it more properly” — and the going off piste policy is written to leave room for exactly that. You don’t even have to use any AI at all in the course; you can do all the work ‘by hand’ and participate fully in the course (although the pace of delivering the prototypes may be challenging to keep up with).
And if you decide that this course still isn’t for you, then that’s fine too — it’s a final-year elective that’s not blocking anyone’s ability to graduate. For what it’s worth I think the issues discussed are real, and people need to make their own decisions about what they want to try out and where they want to nope out.