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. […]
barry
you’ve linked to Alex Havelais’ post there, Axel’s post is here: http://snurb.info/node/812
Clay Shirky
Hey Jill! Long time since we met at Liz Lawley’s place.
Bernstein is simply misreading the historical record. There was a gin craze, and it was not a modulation of earlier patterns of consumption — it was a collective bender of historic proportions, *even using contemporary British consumption as a baseline.*
Now there’s an argument to be had about whether the causes of that craze were in fact the historically sudden urbanization during the early industrial revolution. That’s my claim, but it’s not a slam dunk, to quote Tenet; its a debatable proposition. But that is a very different claim that the one Bernstein is making, namely that the gin craze was just a specious label for business as usual.
(Also, the Axel Bruns link actually points to Alex’s post, not Bruns’.)
Mark Bernstein
Was the gin craze a significant response to urbanization? Were sitcoms a significant response to Shiky’s cognitive surplus?
The pesky thing about the historical record is that it’s historical — and these arguments *both* appear to situate the alleged causes after their purported effects. Urbanization was a long process; the gin craze was a short fad. If you’re looking for the effects of the early industrial revolution, shouldn’t they be especially pronounced in the Midlands, in the Welsh mining towns? And I’m still very leary of relying too heavily on the frankly moralising literature of the early 18th century, which had every reason to exaggerate the drunken immorality of the urban poor and to contrast it with the upstanding plain puritanism of the industrious industrial elite. You see the very same literature in contemporary colonial America, which was not especially urban, and again in Jacksonian America, but we don’t think of either of those generations as amusing themselves to death.
The pushcarts aren’t evidence: everything was sold in the street. And the manufacturing statistics aren’t good evidence either; we know about gin in 1730 (because it was new, and because it was manufactured) but we don’t know nearly as much about ale in 1730 or — and this is crucial — ale in 1330. But we do know that most of the calories in the winter diet in 1330 came from fermented grains; that should tell us something.
I’m more worried about the 20th century, actually. Those sitcoms come right at The End Of History; by the time the sitcoms Shirky cites begin, the great conflicts of the century are pretty much over. National Socialism is a memory, Fascism has been ground into the dust, Communism is in full retreat. Sitcomms did not keep the wheels from falling off: not for six million, and not — more pertinently for the memory of the victims of early industrial urbanism — the unnumbered women dead who went crying their ancient call for bread — and for a pint or two.
It’s a bad sign that so many people (including Jill, above) keep slidng the argument up a century, assuming the gin craze was a 19th century phenomenon. And it’s a bad sign that we casually suppose that the daughters of the gin-drinking urban poor built those libraries and museums and schools. Those a century laters and they were built by gentlemen who drank brandy and whiskey.