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. […]
mjones
And so did we.
Clancy
Yes, welcome back!
dr. b.
Well I have to say, I missed ya!!!
diane
Nice to see you back online!
Jill
Oh thank you!
🙂
weez
Although it’s already been said – yes, I missed you.
Liz
So, I need more details. Your computer got repaired? And how exactly did Hanna manage to get your access restored without your passwords?
Regardless, it’s very nice to have you back.
hanna
Liz, see my comment here for a full (and probably rather boring!) description of how I fixed it.
And yeah, I agree with the others—it’s great to have you back Jill!
jill/txt » never keep a drink bottle in your laptop bag
[…] What happened? Well, let me simply say this: never put your drink bottle in the same bag as your laptop. My laptop was only a little damp when we arrived at Liz’s, and I know the leaking could only have occurred during the last leg of our journey, but the computer still wouldn’t start up. I let it rest for a week assuming it would dry out and be fine, but it wasn’t, and when Apple received it they pronounced the logic board and the hard drive dead and gone and sent me my old computer back with a hard drive empty but for a very minimalistic install of the operating system. New installs of Word and Photoshop and Endnote and Dreamweaver and iLife will have to wait till I return to the university server. Can you believe Apple ships without iPhoto these days? At least, they ship repaired computers without iPhoto. iSync and iTunes I could download, iPhoto I can’t. […]