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. […]
Tama
Jill, the NYT bookmarklet is pretty useful. If you were using Mozilla or Firefox and wanted to bypass the compulsory registration for most online newspapers and the like, check out the bypass plugin Bug Me Not. 🙂
Jill
Oh yes! Bug Me Not is brilliant! Just what I’ve been looking for!! Thanks!
supertan
I read this article today:
It is happening.
Jill Walker, a specialist in interactive and online narrative, based at the University of Bergen in Norway http://huminf.uib.no/~jill, says many writers see blogs as a natural way to update/extend the traditional fictional diary (eg Bridget Jones’s Diary). “But what’s genuinely new about blog fictions is their use of the network.” Most blog fictions haven’t really used the net yet, she continues. “Imagine a fictional blogger who left comments in other people’s blogs, chatted with people, and responded to reader comments as the story unfolded.”
McChris
That bookmarklet is also nice because it allows you to blog a story when it is “live” but when readers click on the story weeks later they actually see the whole story rather than a shill to buy it from the archives. I make sure I use it whenever I blog an NYTimes story.
Norman
If only I understood all of this; but it sounds brilliant