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. […]
Rorschach
From how I read the original article, the author is comparing the reading of any material to the renting of space. As it is read, you place your own mark on it and it becomes yours, just as you decorate an apartment or house with little bits of yourself. My interpretation is that as something is read you can’t help but put your own bias/spin/life experience on it. Or, everyone sees everything a little differently.
If I understand the way you see it, blogs take that a step further and instead of being an individual experience the reading/interpreting becomes a community (co-op? hostel?) experience.
And the comments would be like a house guest who brings a housewarming gift? They visit your home and leave a little bit of themselves that other people who visit can see. It’s still your house but now there’s a bit from someone else in it as well; not prominently displayed but there if you take the time to look.
Not Me
More like commenters are having a picnic in your (unfenced) garden, no?
Jill
Mm, Tom Matrullo wrote about blogs as loci amoeni a year or so ago. Loci amoeni are enclosed Renaissance gardens to which romance heroes would retreat after slaying dragons and such. More or less. Tom suggests that blogs are a site of play, not gaming play exactly:
I like toying with metaphors for blogging, though I suppose that toying mightn’t really lead anywhere useful. Metaphors tend to create as many misunderstandings as understandings.
Not Me
So, it seems, do theories. Perhaps toying, rather than playing or metaphor, is the key word.
Jill
Oh, but I wouldn’t go without the understandings. Would you? Of course if you’re not yourself you’d not actually know, would you.