Bachelor of Information Technology student Caitlyn Muscat sees both the beauty and danger in automated tech
When it comes to career planning, Caitlyn was always ahead of her time. Keen to get employable tech skills straight from high school, she sought out degrees in artificial intelligence (AI), which led her to a Bachelor of IT at Macquarie University.
At the time, Macquarie was one of the only Universities offering units in automation, something which Caitlyn found out after chatting with staff at their annual Open Day.
“Talking to lecturers and professors actually shaped what I wanted to really do in AI,” she says. “I can remember one of my first lecturers talking about ideas such as ‘thinking’ and ‘intelligent’ machines and knew that it was where I wanted to go.”
Feeling it
While in her first year, exposure to original generators DALL E and Midjourney inspired Caitlyn to see AI as an art form. She became obsessed with understanding how AI artworks were created and how they compared to human creations. Yet, it was the ethics behind the tech that particularly piqued her interest.
“I discovered my passion for AI ethics,” she said. “I found it fundamental that AI developers became aware of what they’re creating, especially from an ethical standpoint.”
Currently halfway through her degree, Caitlyn hopes to dive deeper into this controversial topic during postgraduate study. And her dream thesis topic? Exploring the correct use of data in AI systems and whether machines really ‘think’.
“AI has the ability to stretch far beyond human control,” she says. “If I were to get into development it would be the creation of an ethical system.”
Career goals sorted. Now to get through the next assignment!
“It’s fundamental that AI developers become aware of what they are creating.”
Caitlyn’s Pathway
This profile first appeared in Careers with STEM: AI Ethicist 2026 in collaboration with Macquarie University.
