# Ethics

> 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](https://philosophy.cass.anu.edu.au/) 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](https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/research/ai-now-2025-landscape-report),
[environmental footprint](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00478-x),
[potential for mis/disinformation and abuse](https://www.esafety.gov.au/industry/tech-trends-and-challenges/generative-ai),
[cavalier attitude towards intellectual property](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/28/australian-books-training-ai-books3-stolen-pirated),
[effect on jobs and whole industries that I care a lot about](https://www.apraamcos.com.au/about/supporting-the-industry/research-papers/aiandmusic)
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](https://comp.anu.edu.au/courses/comp4020-agentic-coding-studio/topics/software-and-platforms/#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.

Source: <https://comp.anu.edu.au/courses/comp4020-agentic-coding-studio/topics/ethics/>\
Licence: [CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)\
Cite as: Swift, B. (2026). _COMP4020/COMP8020 Agentic Coding Studio_ [Course materials]. ANU School of Computing. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21395760