{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "content": "---\ntitle: \"The road to COMP4020: Agentic Coding for Conscientious Objectors\"\ndescription: \"What would I say to a student who's staunchly anti-AI but curious about COMP4020?\"\ntags: [comp4020]\n---\n\n:::tip\n\nThis post is part of a series I'm writing as I develop\n[COMP4020: Agentic Coding Studio](/blog/2025/12/19/comp4020-rapid-prototyping-for-the-web/).\nSee [all posts in the series](/blog/tag/comp4020/).\n\n:::\n\nUniversities are big places, and they're full of students (and faculty) with all\nsorts of desires, moral frameworks, and likes/dislikes. I was talking with a\ncolleague recently about what I'd say to a student who asked about COMP4020\nAgentic Coding Studio but was staunchly anti-AI.\n\nThe first thing I'd say here is that debates against hypothetical opponents are\ntoo easy to win, so that's not what I'm trying to do here. But I do have a few\nthoughts about how I'd chat to such a student.\n\n<svg width=\"100%\" viewBox=\"0 0 400 200\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\">\n  <!-- TV -->\n  <rect x=\"195\" y=\"30\" width=\"140\" height=\"110\" rx=\"14\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#a5b4fc\" stroke-width=\"2\"/>\n  <rect x=\"210\" y=\"45\" width=\"110\" height=\"80\" rx=\"6\" fill=\"#1e293b\"/>\n  <!-- Ghost on screen -->\n  <circle cx=\"265\" cy=\"75\" r=\"10\" fill=\"#a5b4fc\" fill-opacity=\"0.4\"/>\n  <ellipse cx=\"265\" cy=\"100\" rx=\"8\" ry=\"14\" fill=\"#a5b4fc\" fill-opacity=\"0.25\"/>\n  <!-- Figure -->\n  <circle cx=\"130\" cy=\"90\" r=\"14\" fill=\"#ffab91\" fill-opacity=\"0.6\"/>\n  <ellipse cx=\"130\" cy=\"120\" rx=\"10\" ry=\"18\" fill=\"#ffab91\" fill-opacity=\"0.35\"/>\n  <!-- Gaze -->\n  <path d=\"M 148 88 Q 175 80 208 82\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#80cbc4\" stroke-width=\"1\" stroke-opacity=\"0.5\" stroke-dasharray=\"3 3\"/>\n  <text x=\"200\" y=\"175\" text-anchor=\"middle\" font-size=\"11\" font-style=\"italic\" fill=\"#94a3b8\">\"I use technology in order to hate it properly\"</text>\n</svg>\n\nFirstly, I love the Nam Jun Paik\n[quote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik) that \"I use technology in\norder to hate it properly\"[^paik-quote]. I often feel like that's my approach to\nthe tech in my life, and at times that's how I feel about AI coding tools too. In\nthis vein, my invitation to the student would be to take this course, give the\n[sharpest tools](/blog/2026/02/17/comp4020-sharp-tools/) a red hot go, and then\ndecide where they stand. If they decide they never want to use them again, then\ngreat---that'll be an informed decision.\n\nI have the benefit with this course that (for example) CS1 educators don't:\nmy course isn't compulsory. If students don't want to take it, that's\nfine, and it doesn't block them getting on with their lives. And technically I'm\nnot going to _force_ any student to do AI-assisted agentic coding, either.\nIt's possible to ship 10 prototypes in 10 weeks while rawdogging all the code\nthe old fashioned way, although it'll take (in my opinion) a lot more time &\neffort.\n\nSo if you're reading this and you're an ANU student who meets the pre-requisites\n(COMP3900/6930) and you _are_ deliberately avoiding unnecessary AI use in your\nlife, I'd still love to have you in the course. I'd love to see how your journey\nthrough this course shapes your thoughts about this stuff, regardless of where\nyou end up.\n\n[^paik-quote]:\n    The exact provenance of this quote is murky---it's widely attributed to Paik\n    but hard to pin to a single primary source. You can hear it in the 2023\n    documentary [_Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik:_Moon_Is_the_Oldest_TV)\n    (dir. Amanda Kim).\n",
  "createdAt": "2026-05-13T23:14:36.835Z",
  "description": "What would I say to a student who's staunchly anti-AI but curious about COMP4020?",
  "path": "/blog/2026/04/08/agentic-coding-for-conscientious-objectors",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-08T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:tevykrhi4kibtsipzci76d76/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "comp4020"
  ],
  "textContent": "What would I say to a student who's staunchly anti-AI but curious about COMP4020?",
  "title": "The road to COMP4020: Agentic Coding for Conscientious Objectors"
}