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. […]
Hamdi
Looks like i am too old. *sigh…. I don’t want to be old. Other people are old.
Jill
My thoughts exactly!!
profgrrrrl
I’m not sure that I’d want a FTIC. It feels … nosy, maybe? There’s something to be said for privacy and not always being able to be found.
Yes, that means I’m old. But even my younger siblings don’t seem to be too into the FTIC thing. They leave their AIM on with a status message, but those tend to be vague or cue rather than truly informative.
Jill
Yes, I was wondering whether FTICs actually really exist, or whether they’re descriptions of rather rare activities – that well, might even be used as advertising for a feature people didn’t know they needed.
A Collage of Citations » up late, thinking about full-time intimate communities
[…] I just finished the next-to-last draft of the Writing Intensive Curriculum winter term newsletter, and I should be using this energetic up-late time to work on Sara and my CCCC talk for next week, but I just read a post at jill/txt that got me thinking. Quoting Joi Ito, she describes Full-Time Intimate Communities: FTICs are the close group of friends (usually around 8-10 people) with whom you share presence. Most mobile youths know whether members of their FTIC are awake, at school, happy, sick, finished with their homework, etc. They use their mobile phones to keep in touch with their FTIC usually sending state changes by text message. […]
cathy
I am most definitely too old for FTICs, and my 21 year old is also too old, I am glad to add – at least I belong to a group that includes 21 year olds – my teenagers however have FTICs, always there with Bebo, MSN, and SMS. Sometimes all at the same time, as well as the house phone, and even the front door… Yes, FTICs exist, and they have invaded my house.
Thomas
I had a strange feeling when I had uset Twitter for a while. On one hand I loved to be so in touch with my friends lives, and on the other hand I felt that it was a bit too intrusive How did everybody around me get so old, I’m not getting any older:-/).
When I was a kid my sisters spent hours on the phone with their friends, just keeping in touch, so I don’t think mobile phones and IM makes this FTIC new, just easier with the new tools.
torill
I call them family. When we’re all at different parts of the world, we connect to check what’s up, who’s where, did we arrive safely, who’s staying up late or who’s gettign up early. Not every change of state, but pretty closely connected.