QUT You

You engage with Artificial Intelligence (AI) daily, perhaps unknowingly, through search engines, social media, and streaming services. It is increasingly likely that you will apply AI tools in your future career, regardless of your field. But without any understanding of how AI systems are built and tested, how do you know that you can trust them?   In this unit you will explore what AI is, how it’s developed, and its potential pitfalls. You will learn to decipher AI jargon, to probe AI systems to understand their capabilities and limitations, consider how AI may impact your future career, and the challenges present in ensuring that AI acts in a fair and ethical manner. You will explore AI concepts and methods through interactive demonstrations and real-world tools which will demonstrate the possibilities and problems with AI, and its broad applicability across fields including Engineering, Business, Health, Law and Design.  

In this unit, you will explore the place in which QUT is situated, reflect on its culture both past and present, and discover knowledge embedded in place. Meeanjin, also known as Brisbane, is Country to the Turrbal and Yugara peoples, and home for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, affectionately regarded as the Brisbane Blacks. This unit will allow you to ‘choose your own adventure’ to explore the varying ways in which to think of the significance of place, geologically, historically, culturally, and politically. You will experience an unsettling of the primacy of ‘Western’ framings of knowledge, environment, community and climate. In so doing, you will gain a deeper understanding of the oldest continuous living culture in the world, the sophistication and strength of Indigenous world views, and arrive at a fuller appreciation of the value of co-existing knowledge systems which can help us as we journey to a sustainable and racially just society. 

Real world challenges such as climate change, health epidemics, and data or food security are by their very nature complex. Often, solutions require both large scale changes through government and commercial sectors, but also locally driven action that is tailored to the nuances of a community or region. In this QUT You unit, you will develop an action plan related to a social, health, political or environmental real world challenge of interest. You will work collaboratively with students from diverse faculties to employ critical and creative thinking to drive positive impact. Your discoveries will identify the challenges, reasons for a lack of action, and likely areas of intervention that may result in a meaningful change to attitudes, technologies, and/or behaviour. Through supported tutorials, you will create a locally driven action plan to engage, educate, and encourage meaningful change from members of the general public or a relevant community. 

We are living in an increasingly diverse, interconnected and constantly evolving world. Understanding who we are and how our own positionality affects others is critical to our ability to work effectively with diverse teams. It is a key transferable skill that can be applied to our future studies, careers, and even day-to-day lives. This unit will provide you with the knowledge to apply inclusive and ethical strategies to understand, resolve, and prevent real world challenges. You will use these skills to explore and respond to one of a range of challenges identified by community and industry stakeholders.

We both live and work in a diverse and multi-cultural society. To be successful in your professional and personal lives you need to recognise and appreciate the impact that your own identity and the identity of others contributes to our social interactions and relationships. This unit provides you with skills to become more culturally aware in your communication and express yourself in a confident, but respectful manner. By learning about the intricate nature of culture, language and power, and how they contribute to engagement with others, you will be better able to form meaningful and connected relationships. You will also learn to apply skills including observation, empathy, communication and social connection to understand and address power imbalances in personal and work relationships. These skills will enable you to work effectively in diverse teams and to foster inclusive environments in both personal and professional settings.

Whether we are presenting a creative, experimental project, a scientific discovery, or business opportunity, pitching is a valuable, life-long skill that we typically learn through trial and error. Brilliant ideas don’t sell themselves. To survive and thrive in this globalised and competitive market, it’s vital to be able to communicate our ideas concisely, creatively, and persuasively to diverse audiences and gain their support. In this unit you will learn how to develop and deliver a pitch that inspires diverse audiences and leaves a lasting positive impression. Researching topics that have personal and real-world significance, you will be guided by the teaching team and learn how to concisely and confidently communicate your ideas in innovative and compelling ways. The knowledge and skills developed in this unit have application across academic and professional contexts.

The modern world is a minefield of misinformation. Without a suite of skills to critique the information we receive, we are all targets for misinformation from actors with sometimes dangerous intentions. In this unit, you will learn how to identify and evaluate the reliability of information in order to make informed decisions. You will learn to identify hidden agendas, biases, and influences behind the messages we receive. You will question your own views, their origins, and their ongoing sources of influence. This unit will equip you with skills to enable you to make informed decisions and take responsible actions. This involves critical self-reflection, and an understanding of the tricks that can be used to bypass your usual critical thinking skills. You will also develop a set of criteria on which the value of evidence and arguments can be judged. Media and technology use will be a particular focus, as we examine the personal influences which shape our views.

Whether you dream of becoming an environmental scientist, an interaction designer, a health professional, or a market analyst, your future career will require you to use computers to deal with harder problems and more data about more things than ever before. In this hands-on unit you will learn and apply computational thinking – the art of formulating problems in such a way that a machine can solve them for you. Each week you will tackle a range of real world and interdisciplinary challenges using simple coding resources and techniques. You will also work collaboratively to evaluate and critique the use and application of coding techniques in different disciplines to understand their societal implications. At the end of the unit, you will be able to apply these skills and knowledge to your own discipline to better prepare you for our increasingly technology-driven world. You will understand how coding works, and you will know how to critique different approaches.

Data is part of the fabric of our modern societies with almost all aspects of our lives influenced, for better or worse, by systems that are fundamentally data-driven. As individuals, we often unknowingly contribute enormous quantities of data to these systems through our use of smart devices, wearables, and online platforms. Understanding the power and limitations of the rapidly growing field of data science is more important than ever before. In this unit, you will identify sources of bias, error, and misinterpretation within the data science pipeline and the potential consequences of data-driven decision-making if these sources are left unchecked. This grounding in fundamental principles of data science will empower you to think critically and ethically about these systems and how they affect us. Regardless of your career or discipline, you have a role to play in ensuring data-driven systems are built that align with our personal values and the values of our society.

What does the future look like in a world where robots provide support and care to older people, drive public transport, work alongside us in health and manufacturing settings, or greet us at a restaurant? Distinct from industrial robots, collaborative robots are uniquely designed to be easy to use and safe for people to work with. The ways in which collaborative robots are designed, used, and adopted can have significant impact on future societies. In this unit we will focus on physical robots that interact with people. We will design and evaluate collaborative robot concepts in response to real world challenges and examine their impact on people and robot collaboration. We will imagine what an ethical, sustainable, and socially just future could look like where people and robots work together in relation to your future career. In doing so you will be better equipped to engage with and critique the role that collaborative robots might have in your life.