A friend recently made me aware of a course UNSW is running: DART2331 AI, Culture and Aesthetics. Another Domain Art course, it was originally called Data Aesthetics until the name changed for 2026, although it contained mentions of AI in the course overview from 2024 (though this was not specified to be generative AI*).
No course overview is currently available, but the course outline reads as follows:
"This course introduces students to the key concepts, theories, and impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) in today’s creative and cultural industries. The course connects students with critical issues in social, cultural, political, economic, and artistic contexts to help students develop critical understandings of the ever-changing relationships between artificial intelligence and creative practice. The course specifically examines theories of human, social and machine creativity; copyright and its crisis under AI; histories of artistic remixing, re-appropriation, and imitation and their relation to AI; and theories of the value of the arts."
Great so far! It hits on a lot of the very important points about generative AI - given that it can only find patterns and reproduce them from a database of existing human-made works, it is an interesting way to examine where cultural narratives are today. AI replicates all patterns, not just palatable ones, so things like misogyny, racism, objectification and ragebaiting are reproduced as well. I also like that it touches on copyright and appropriation, although it seems vague in regards to what angle it's going to take, and I'm not sure about the phrasing of 'machine creativity'.
But there's one more sentence...
"The course also draws on specific contemporary creative AI practices and encourages students to connect these discussions to your preferred creative domain area (for example, visual art, design, film, music)."
That's the kicker. The course encourages (or requires) you to undermine the work of artists and participate in the exploitation of people and the planet to produce inherently derivative and subpar 'creative' works. Truthfully, I was very happy with the course outline and hopeful for its educational value until this last sentence. In the end, it has all the same problems as Generative AI for Artists.
I also notice that it's another General Education course. For those who don't know, General Education courses are ones which are available for all students to take. Although this does not appear to be unusual for DART courses at least, it strikes me as unsettling since generative AI is so often associated with exploitation by non-artists.
It is clear that UNSW is intent on continuing to push generative AI upon its students and staff, regardless of whether or not we actually want it. From what I can see, the best path forward may be to pressure the SRC and university admin to reverse these changes and ensure their only engagement with generative AI is strictly ethical. To help, you can encourage others to sign this petition, make or share posts on social media, and email our SRC.
*As an aside, I use the term 'generative AI'/'gen AI' deliberately to refer to artificial intelligence which is focused on producing output such as text, images and video. AI is an extremely broad term that has been around in some form for decades, and I do not inherently have a problem with all forms of AI. I just mention this because I sometimes find communication from UNSW and other organisations confusing when they do not specify, but from the language of the course outline for DART2331, I am almost certain that the 2026 version centers around generative AI.