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. […]
Lars
See your previous post…
mcb
I reckon you could climb one if you really wanted to…
Jill
Uh, yeah… True.
OK, well, to be honest, I want to climb lamp posts but I don’t really want to put in the effort to learn how to do it and strengthen my arms sufficiently.
So I guess I choose not to climb lamp posts rather than just “can’t” climb em.
christian
You are probably able to, but can’t be bothered!
El diabloG
I dare you to climb a lamp post, let your daugther take a picture, post it and prove to the world you really can do it. You know, a broken foot heals quick but the uncertainty of your climbing skills will stay with you for the rest of your life.
Kevin
Been there, done that! Be careful while drunk!!!
LarsD
Itís never to late. Astrid Lindgren loved to climb from she was a little girl till she was an old lady. Iíve seen pictures of Astrid and her sister Stine climbing trees. They seem to having a wonderful time together.
Jill
But children have this amazing body weight to strength ratio. Another mother told me that she vividly remembers when she lost the strength necessary for climbing trees: she climbed eagerly until she was six or seven, but one day her mother became frightened because the child was so high, so the mother forbad the child to climb in her favourite tree. A couple of months later, the child (now a mother herself) tried to climb the tree again, despite her mother’s interdiction, but she couldn’t. Her arms had lost their strength.
I hope Aurora never loses hers.
Alex Halavais
Brava! I am glad for your correction.
I stopped climbing trees when I finished university. My undergrad institution was situated around a large arboretum, so it was the most natural thing in the world to go up a tree to read or study. At least I thought it was–some others thought it was a little strange. Soon after my future wife and I started dating, I invited her to climb with me into my favorite tree on campus. She thought I was strange too, but I guess she got over it.
These days, climbing stairs is hard enough. But someday I will climb trees again. And lampposts.
Norman
Don’t leave it too long. I have a photo of my daughter standing on the end of a projecting rock in Bolivia, with a sheer cliff dropping literally thousands of feet into a canyon. She loved it at the time, but recently her knees went wobbly simply looking at the photo.
Before I began school, I somehow managed to get up a metal pole carrying the telephone wire through a park, in order to confirm that messages were carried via a weak electric impulse. Sixty odd years on, I’m squeamish even thinking about my obsession with heights [not to mention stupid “experiments”]
So soar before it’s too late.
GENDER & COMPUTING
Motivation and encouragement
I have linked to this blog before: Ass Be Gone: Chronicle of dieting follies by two sisters and I have…