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. […]
Jim
hi Jill..Have you tried The Wayback Machine at The Internet Archive
(http://www.archive.org/web/web.php)…30 billion ancient web pages
to access!
Jill
Yes, but it only goes back to 1996 in some cases and 1997 in others. Actually Guyers and Riddle’s things in my post are from the Wayback Machine – they’re long gone from the living web.
I wish I could SEARCH the Wayback Machine as though on a particular date. That would perhaps be a gargantuan thing to set up.
Simon Mills
Hi jill
You may want to try the trAced section of the trAce website
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/traced/
I wrote some of this way back in 1995 when it was published as a small booklet. I think the booklet is going to be put online soon to commemorate trAce’s 10 year anniversary. Most of the links probably don’t work now but it is a snapshot of literature resources available on the web at that time.
best
Simon
Simon Mills
Strangely enough I’d just posted the above when an email arrived in my inbox informing me that the scanned booklet has just been put online at
http://www.writersforthefuture.com/1995
synchronicity!
Jill
Simon, this is perfect! Thank you!!
Prentiss Riddle
Well, that’s a blast from the past!
So funny to recall the day when it seemed reasonable to assemble bulleted lists of items in a category in the hope of finding most of them.