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. […]
christian
Pc’s are ugly……. Can’t say I agree with u. I don’t trust computers with only one mousebutton.
Robert Myall
Jill/txt looks ugly? Must depend on the pc. I check the site from both pc and mac. Always looks exactly the same to me.
I’m not a big fan of those dissolves at all, at least not on a computer. I got over whacky transitions before I ever used them. Whacky transitions are to video editors what goto is to a programmer.
Matt Kirschenbaum
Jill, thanks for noticing 😉
Robert, there are days when I come very close to nixing that dissolve/transition myself, but thus far I’ve hung onto it, for reasons I can’t quite explain, but which have something to do with intervening in the relentless click-through cadences of the Web, the next next next of lives lived by links–the dissolve slows it all down, adds friction, adds resistance in those heated wires–or something like that, anyway . . .
JIll
I like the slowing down, the emphasis on the move or on the link – though I suspect it might get really old if it were more common. Or perhaps not. It doesn’t appear to be any slower than a regular link?
i1277
Expect a dialup revival anytime soon, to go with the new “slowweb” trend…
(Christian: Right on, how do they cope with one mousebutton? Maybe related to masochism of some sort.)
Lisa
Two mouse buttons is excessive when one works fine.
–MACevellian to the core : )
ABliss
My pc is not ugly, nor is your blog and there are many different os, browsers and screen resolutions so you pages will look different depending on computer specs regardless.
JIll
One mousebutton? Well, mostly you only want one anyway, and when you want to get contextmenus and stuff you just control-click. Or option-click if you want other stuff. Even shift-option click sometimes.
Let me rephrase the PCs are ugly thing, which is obviously volatile enough to start a war (and I really don’t want that): Personally, I find Macs more attractive than PCs. Hardware, interface and font smoothing. OK?
Anonymous
Heard of USB? Get a five button mouse for your Mac (the one that you don’t have), if you think you need it…
Metablog..
Transitions
Jeg la inn transitions p siden min for en stund siden, men fjernet dem igjen l¯rdag da jeg var blitt