I share your opinion.
I wish I could spend the whole week to dive into AI, IMHO without previous knowledge a regular person can't catch up with course progress. Unfortunately I can't leave everything behind to study the deeps of AI and in this case the ML does a great job, Professor NG presets lectures and a few quizes to see if you understand that sensible topic, then you can apply those concepts with programming exercices and homework.
I'm almost giving up about my dream that is attend a course in Stanford. I'm a 28 college dropout who had to start working to help family. I don't live in US, I'm married, I have a great job (that I believe is far more interesting than most of you guys). But I have this itch for Academics. *
I'm glad I've been playing around with both ML and AI classes but I think that Stanford should stick with Professor NG didactics.
ps: I know that my statement sounds like the "occupies" but is hard to see dreams not becoming reality. I feel sorry for those who dropout Stanford/MIT to create a landing page startups.