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. […]
I laid my bag on the table while I waited, and watched it silently mimicking the crooked crosses of letter-writers.
Marcelo
Hei, jeg heter Marcelo og jeg bo i Brasil. Norsk mitt er
ikke godt, jeg skal snakke i Engelske nÂ…
Hi, I hope your English be good. In case of the message
above do not make any sense, here it is:
My name is Marcelo, I live in Brasil. My Norwegian is
not very good, although I think it is one of the most
beautiful languages in the world, but I am improving it
the best I can… You must be wondering the reason I end
up falling into your blog. Well, I enjoy visiting
Norwegian pages, in order to learn some stuff about this
country (my goal is one day to be able to read Ibsen in
the original), luckly your blog was in English…
I hope you return this message and we can start to share
something of ours. Finally, I would like to invite you
to visite my blog (although you will not understand a
thing, because it is in Portuguese). Here is the address:
http://www.barbaricvs.blogger.com.br/index.html
I am already waiting for you.
Bye-bye. Ha det godt!
Susana
oh my god, that is also the reason why James Joyce learned Norwegian, I wonder if Ibsen is responsible for a lot of headaches… 🙂
Jill
James Joyce learned Norwegian so he could read Ibsen? Good grief.
Eirik
What’s with the “good grief”? I can hardly think of a better reason for learning Norwegian. And compared to, say, Shakespeare or MoliÈre, the venerable Henrik is far easier on the little gray cells. “Ikke ¯l i en sÂdan stund, gi meg fl¯yten!” 🙂
Mum
There’s also that American actor, Earle Hyman, who began studying Norwegian, teaching himself to read and write it just so that he could read Ibsen in the original. Earle followed up by contacting Ibsen’s grandson and his wife, and arranged to visit them in 1957. Since then he’s become a regular visitor with a distinguished acting career on the Norwegian Stage (as well as being the screen grandfather to the Cosby family). I saw him play Othello once and he did it brilliantly in a fullbodied Norwegian dialect.
Meanwhile, that handbag thing, was the comment a bit of Ern Malley light or did I just not get it?
Mum
They say you laugh at a joke 3 times, once when you hear it, the second time when it’s explained to you and the third time when you wake up at 4 Am because you just GOT it! Well, I’m up packing for an early flight – and it’s not long after 4 AM. And now I SEE IT!!! Easily. The criss cross or kiss cross if you prefer! The frustrations of looking for a metaphor lurking in among the words rather than a straight forward visual symbol in the photo are totally disipated. Neat.
Jill
OK, so it’s perfectly standard to learn Norwegian so you can read Ibsen. I’ve never tried reading Ibsen in translation, spoilt as I am, but I’ve read Shakespeare in Norwegian and HATE it. So it does seem likely Ibsen is better in Norwegian.
Mum, so glad you saw the cross, I hadn’t even thought of people not seeing it – perhaps most people don’t?
Eirik
I, for one, did not get the cross point, and spent some time scratching my head. And speaking of not getting jokes… 😉
Marcelo
I think i’m gonna quit this reading Ibsen idea! Please…