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. […]
Francois Lachance
Jill,
Reseau makes the abstracts are available in English and in French. And there is the option of purchasing individual articles. And I’m sure your French will hold up nicely.
Jill
I bought the whole volume, so will be looking forward to receiving it in hte mamil – and yes, I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out. So when I was ordering it, they kept asking for my “mÈl”, and insisted I wasn’t doing it right until I gave them my email address. Is that kind of a new word for “email”? MÈl. Sort of cool.
Lesley
MÈl: it’s really just an attempt to spell “mail” ‡ la franÁaise and without the
dipthong. The recommended French translation of e-mail is courriel which
nobody really seems to use. It does give the rather nice word pourriel though
which is a combination of pourri and courriel and means spam.
Jill
Ah, yes, I’ve found courriel in the dictionary – and I like pourriel. So mÈl is fairly common then?