I just signed a petition calling for Norwegian universities to use research expertise on AI when deciding how to implement it, rather than having decisions be made mostly administratively. , If you are a researcher in Norway, please read it and sign it if you agree – and share with anyone else who might be interested. The petition was written by three researchers at UiT: Maria Danielsen (a philosopher who completed her PhD in 2025 on AI and ethics, including discussions of art and working life), Knut Ørke (Norwegian as a second language), and Holger Pötzsch (a professor of media studies with many years of research on digital media, video games, disruption, and working life, among other topics). This is not about preventing researchers from exploring AI methods in their research. It is about not uncritically accepting the hype that everyone must use AI everywhere without critical reflection. It is about not introducing Copilot as the default option in word processors, or training PhD candidates to believe they will fall behind if they do not use AI when writing articles, without proper academic discussion. Changes like these should be knowledge-based and discussed academically, not merely decided administratively, because they alter the epistemological foundations of research. Maria wrote to me a couple of months ago because she had read my opinion piece in Aftenposten in which I called for a strong brake on the use of language models in knowledge work. She was part of a committee tasked with developing UiT’s AI strategy and was concerned because there was so much hype and so few members of the committee with actual expertise in AI. I fully support the petition. There are probably some good uses for AI in research, but the uncritical, hype-driven insistence that we must simply adopt it everywhere is highly risky. There are many researchers in Norway with strong expertise in AI, language, ethics, working life, and culture. We must make use of this expertise. This is also partly about respect for research in the humanities, social sciences, psychology, and law. Introducing AI at universities and university colleges is not merely a technical issue, and perhaps not even primarily a technical one. It concerns much more: philosophy of science, methodological reflection, epistemology, writing, publishing, the working environment, and more. […]
ElisabethIC
I will write this in norwegian, since I have a question for you, but I don’t
expect an answer (and my english is as good as a penguin):
Jeg lurte p om du kunne ta deg en liten tur innom bloggen min, jeg
vet ikke helt hvorfor jeg vil det, siden du er s flink med dette,
kanskje forelle meg litt om hvordan jeg gj¯r det? Og jeg pr¯ver Â
f flere lesere… Uansett, jeg vet ikke helt hva jeg skriver her.
Elisabeth
Jill
Elisabeth, I don’t think I can really give you advice – just blog because you want to and write the way that you want, taht makes you happy. I mean, yeah, that sort of sounds clichÈed. Can’t do any better, sorry…
scott
I would recommend that you blog as a penguin. Their movie was very successful, and very few people actually speak their language with any degree of proficiency. If you can speak penguin as well as you can write in English, your blog would be a unique and fascinating resource.
Jill
Ooh, I’ve never seen a penguin blog. That’s a great idea.
ElisabethIC
I think I actually are bloggin like a penguin in Norwegian already, as a
hard-core teenager (17) with a mental age of 28 (I took a test),
I think that I alredy are rocking the surface of Antartica. 😉
But still, my english is a little rusty.
Btw, Jill, I simply LOVE your blog!
Niklas
Hmm I wonder if that figure is applicible to sweden as well?
Olav A
Statistics Norway published its Media barometer 2005 today with new statistics of media use in Norway.
To clear up something in the mentioned Mandag Morgen statistics in Jill’s post: This was a web-based survey, so the 7 percent daily blog readers is related to the total number of Norwegians online, which according to TNS Gallup is 3,2 Million. Hence when the story says that 840.000 Norwegians read blogs at least weekly, that’s 26 percent of the online population.
Kjerstin
Does the survey say anything about what kind of blogs people read? For instance, it would be interesting to know how many people read blogs because of the content, or writing style or whatever, and how many read blogs because they have friends who blog.
Olav A
Kjerstin: Agree, but we didn’t have the possibility to ask more questions this time around. The survey also showed that most people read from one to four blogs, only 2 percent followed more than ten blogs. Norwegian blogs were much more popular than foreign.
Jill
I just got a copy of the article through my library (which I’ve asked to start subscribing to Mandag morgen since there are lots of good stats and surveys in it) and there’s more info there – I might have time to blog a little more later…
Cheryl Hagedorn
I stumbled in here while looking for a Norwegian blook. Do you know of any? I just found what I think is the first Danish one and the first Nigerian one. [I have a blog about blooks]. Any help you might give me as to where to look would be appreciated. Thanks.