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. […]
Captain Sunshine
When I worked for the campus police, we never had any problem with providing an escort for anyone going to their vehicle, or to the edge of campus. We would call them a cab if they needed to go farther, or we would take them home ourselves on occasion. I hope you can make use of the same service from your security guards.
It always beat walking around for eight hours by myself. Hope they don’t talk your ear off too much 🙂 .
CS
torill
We don’t want you endangered for the sake of research Jill. I have always wanted a cattle prod to prod sleepy colleagues awake – perhaps this is a more legitimate use for it, and we need to get you one?
One thing I am curious about is who else but late-working professors use the building? In Volda they found that by giving students access through key cards the number of break ins, vandalism and other unpleasantness was dramatically reduced. They discovered this by observing how the media department, which has always been open to students and at the same time always had tempting, expensive equipment, had less incidents than the traditionally totally closed teacher’s department. When students have access to labs and studios 24 hours, they tend to use it, which means a stalker or a rapist can not count on being alone with his prey.
Jill
Apparently, since they shut down the student centre (studentsenteret), whch is right next to the park where the drug addicts hang out, addicts have started spreading out and using other university buildings, including our building – though I’ve not noticed this at all. Right now my building is open to the public until 7 pm, which is good because the university library is in my building (temporarily while they rebuild the library building) and it’s important that it’s open to the general public. It’s not good if it means we’re frightened at work.
Students and staff do have access until late at night, using key cards. Pretty much all equiptment is in labs that are always locked with keycards and/or keys.