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. […]
Jon
It also says Edward Forster is writing like a woman. At least when I pasted a text from Howards End.
Alan Levine
It got me was a woman (wrong) based on an article I wrote for our publication. According to the right/wrong stats posted at the Genie, it is running pretty much 50/50, suggesting a magic 8 ball might do just as well or a coin flip.
It is interesting and should (hopefully) promote discussion about the written word.
Anonymous
well, that’s an interesting issue. 🙂 it is amazing how statistical methods would predict your gender/sex. nevertheless the methods are made by people right…? hence the statistical method bases on it. cheerio. mo
Dennis G. Jerz
The introduction from my dissertation and some of my pages on interactive fiction are “male”… but plenty of my online writing handouts are “female”. The Genie seems to be running at only about 50% accuracy right now, but I think that may be because accuracy is user reported. The design of the interface may discourage people from telling the Genie it is right. (I’ve posted more about that on my blog, so I’ll spare you the details.)
Liz
It pegs all of my “techie” posts (MT courseware, grad program restructuring, etc) as male, and my “personal” posts as female. I’m unimpressed.
Based on the stats it puts up when you tell it if it was correct, it seems to be about as accurate as a coin-toss. 🙂
Liz
Ooops. Just noticed that Alan already pointed out its poor performance. Sorry. That’s what I get for writing before I read. :/
chuck
I’ve been getting mixed results. Sometimes I’m male, sometimes female (and not necessarily based on the topic of whatever blog entry I’ve submitted). I agree with Dennis that self-reporting isn’t going to reflect a sample with any degree of precision, but I’m not sure that the effect will be that significant. For example, I sometimes forgot to submit my results, often when the gender genie was wrong. Interesting questions.
Jamie
I wouldn’t trust anything that restricts the world to only two genders. I have ahard enough time dealing with people who do that.
Elin
Hi Jamie:-) What other genders do you propose?
Jamie
Hi Elin 🙂 Fancy meeting you here
How about butch, and femme for instance?
A few words of clarification: The word `gender’ is tricky in English. It isn’t exactly the same as male/female/whatever, it is more like masculine/feminine/etc. I subscribe to Kate Bornstein’s view that gender is more like a social club with rules of behaviour and that a person can belong to many genders and change genders frequently. I don’t agree with everything she says though (although I certainly haven’t thought about it as much as she has).
kaye trammell
I have been playing with that old gender game the past few days myself. After testing it on my husband (who was less than thrilled to be involved) & it failing — I realized something.
It seems like such a feminine thing to do. Those gender genie people are so smart!
Norman
The genie, not surprisingly, assigned a different sex for each of two pieces I submitted. I was “female” praising Australian Armed Forces in a reflective manner, and “male” when I discussed the significance of personal relationships. The Genie’s “interpretation” simply refelected the style I’d felt appropriate in each case, for a particular purpose. The biological basis of differences between male and female brains [including those of homosexuals] may not be openly discussed in “polite” or “PC” circles; but the evidence is overwhelming, including the existence of significant overlapping in the general population. Let’s look at some of the points raised above re the “Genie’s” effectiveness.
1] Males’ emails would be expected to differ from their “public” writings to a greater degree than was the case with females. Females tend to relate in a “personal” manner in their everyday discussions more than males do. Males adopt the more personal [i.e. more typically “female” response] in their less public communications, such as emails.
2] Jill’s doctoral thesis was the result not so much of any subconscious attempt to adopt a “male” style, as using skills possessed by many members of both [all?] sexes, that were most appropriate to the task in hand. At best, it’s merely a contingent fact that males TEND to use this style more than females in their everyday communication.
3] It would be surprising if many male writers DIDN’T employ a style closer to the “female” form of communication in “Howard’s End”, or other novels.
Unfogged
Chromosomes can lie
Yesterday Ogged admitted to being a woman. It’s now official: according to the Gender Genie’s analysis of that very post (minus the quotes), he’s female. (Thanks to jill/txt for the pointer to the Genie, which resides at Bookblog.)…
speedysnail
Gender Bender
The Gender Genie [via jill/txt] applies an algorithm to a block of text to predict the gender of its author. I’m a sucker for these things, so I tried it…
steffanie.net | logblogwhatever...
woman or man?
Test your writing and see if you are a woman or a man. The Gender Genie uses an algoritm to decide the sex of the author. Found via jill/txt.