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. […]
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Tea Granhaug
Hei! Hedmark fylkesbibliotek og Akershus fylkesbibliotek arrangerer den 5. og 6. februar 2009 seminaret “StÂsted 2.0” – et seminar om web 2.0, bibliotekenes rolle i dagens samfunn, og veien videre. I den forbindelse lurer jeg p om du har lyst og mulighet til  delta som foreleser p seminaret? Seminaret finner sted p Clarion hotell p Gardemoen, og vi kunne ¯nske oss deg som Âpningsforeleser en av dagene.
Du kan n meg p tea.granhaug@hedmark.org eller p bloggen min! 🙂
Mvh Tea Kristin Granhaug, spesialbibliotekar, Hedmark fylkesbibliotek
Lina
Dear Jill, since I wasn’t sure whether you were still using the email, I am trying to get in touch this way.
I gather that you are Norwegian (correct me if I am wrong) and you might be able to point me into the right direction. Currently
I am doing a Research Master in Media studies in Utrecht University and I am working on a small project researching how linguistically the words representing the virtual space are being mapped in various languages and I would
appreciate if you took a minute to reply what are the words mentioned
bellow in Norwegian. I think this could potentially reveal
a fascinating kaleidoscope of how we define the virtual in various
cultures. In example, in Lithuanian (I’m from Lithuania myself) ‘web site’ is ‘interneto svetainė’ which in fact means a
living/sitting/common room in the internet. ‘blog’ is ‘tinklaraötis’ which means a script on the net or a net that
is weaving a pattern/script and ‘to surf’ is ‘naröyti’ which stands for rummage. I was wondering such patterns could be traced in other languages. While I understand that English lexicon is quite popular, perhaps some new words are being invented to replace the English ones?
A few words I am interested in are:
***********
‘web site’
‘blog’
‘surf’
‘internet’
‘internaut’ (or other words defining the users of the internet)
************
If you could take a minute to reply with as precise
definitions of the above words with as correct transcription of them
(with dots, umlauts and other diacritics), I would be forever
grateful. If you come up with some other interesting words circulating
within that context or would like to forward this to other people
from across the globe, you are more than welcome. Perhaps you could email me to lina[dot]zigelyte[at]gmail[dot]com or leave a comment here.
Thanks a mill!
Gisele
That is a great idea… unfortunately I can’t read Norwaigian… is there any post translated to English?
Jill Walker Rettberg
Lina, I’m afraid the Norwegian translations are very prosaic.
webside
blogg
surfe
internett
– and I don’t think there’s a word for “internaut”
There have been attempts are more “Norwegian” translations. “Verdensveven” was suggested for the Web (meaning “the world loom or “the world weaving”) but it doesn’t seem to have caught on. The others have never, to my knowledge, had better translations: I think English is so common in Norway that it makes sense for translations to be close. And the languages are fairly closely related, too.
Gisele, I don’t think there’s a translation, sorry. Bablefish may help!
Lina
Many thanks anyway! It seems that the more interesting variations are in the East – Russian, Lithuanian and there rare some amusing ones in Irish.