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. […]
Helge Tenn¯
Funny that, personally I have really disliked “snapshots”. As I have found very little use for the application on the pages where I have seen it installed (to small images of almost always similar looking websites that doesn’t really give you all that much to persuade you to take action). And of-course the annoyingly large popups jumping up when you incidentally move your mouse over a link on the page.
Now I am reading the jill/txt blog through a newsreader so I haven’t been bothered on this site, but I find it interesting that you kind of endorse annoying popups but at the same time disapprove of them if there is an advertising message in there.
And this is not only on his blog of course, but many bloggers publicly disapproving of intrusive advertising (me included of course) installing this plugin on their own media-channel. I have always found that a bit weird and interesting at the same time :o)
Helge
Jill Walker Rettberg
A week or two after installing SnapShots I ran a poll for readers of this blog about whether or not to keep it, and nearly twice as many loved it as hated it – also, a significant number hadn’t noticed it.
I liked it before they put in the advertising, but certainly not enough to put up with the new advertisements!