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. […]
Jason
Weez had a brief post about it a while back as well, with some interesting comments:
http://weez.oyzon.com/archives/000176.html
(Hmm. I must be channeling Francois.)
hanna
This topic also arose today on an IRC channel that I frequent. Specifically, the discussion there focussed on the act of taking over another person’s disused LiveJournal and posting one’s own ideas there as comments.
Francois Lachance
What is the difference between a complete and an incomplete tangent? [A set of mediations yet to come.]
What is the difference between a peripheral approach and Francois Lachance’s peripheral approach? [A set of meditations]
For more on the complexity of possession and ownership see the comments attached to a chutry experiment entry:
quote> It is the asking of the question “Are we not all blogging on borrowed time?” that can be attributed to a moment that is mine or may become characterized as a question I often ask. […] think about the art of timing questions
Meehan Keely
Art is vision, not expression.
join-the-dots
coincidences
cogdogblog
Blogging in the Margins- Comment Blogginh
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, English professor at University of Maryland, blogs about comment blogging a different mode of effective participation in the blog world simply by using the comment space of other weblog. Kirschenbaum cites how François L…
WeezBlog
fun in the interstices
I’ve been blogjacked. -g- and Francois are making an uninteresting post most interesting. Activating transitional spaces and maximizing the areas of greatest potential….
the chutry experiment
So I have a question….
Would we be asking so many questions about Francois if he had his own blog? I’m not sure I can add to the range of observations that others have already made, especially this late at night (I’ll have to remember…