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. […]
Elin
What happened to your trackbacks? I’ve written something about this here and wanted to do a track back~!
I personally think you’d be bored if you couldn’t share with us all:-)
Jose Angel
Early adopters, early adapters… To twist a phrase, “the early bird doesn’t get the Google worm”…
But even if you drop away from the web people are going to talk about you, you know.
Jill
Oh, I’ve made that adaptor/adopter mistake before. Ah well. Worm? Oh, and Elin, I’ve no idea, they should work but often don’t and I dunno why and though I like trackbacks, I do, I don’t have the energy to figure it out. Kind of like the comment field which is really inconvenient.
Chris
Ungoogleablity being cool? Never..that is the people who cant be googled trying to make themselves feel better 🙂
Oliver Wrede
I think the easiest and 100% effective way to get unGoogleable is to change your name and follow some of the advices given on this page. It boils down to getting a new life – which potentially is easier to do than to wipe the net completely. 😉
Jill
Hm. Kaye Trammell is also blogging less now that she’s no longer a grad student. Not because she doesn’t like blogging, but, well, actually she’s not quite sure why, it seems.
I’m really rather struggling with finishing this (overdue) article. A lot of resistance there. What, exactly, does that mean? Perhaps I’ll stop writing about blogging. Blogging is. My research is on other things.
Elin
That’s probably exactly it, Jill:-)
Elin
Have you seen this by the way? Why I hate weblogs
J. Nathan Matias
Of course, becoming ungoogleable is only one way to avoid the problems of the ‘net world. My solution? Saturate the system with information authored *by me* so I am the authoritative source on myself. Lazy people won’t look beyond the first page. I thus have a lot of power in defining who I am considered to be.
No, I don’t think of this in a conniving, scheming way. But I am encouraged by the fact that there so so much good information about me that I don’t need to worry about someone faking me.
torill
When you stop enjoying this, you should stop doing it. The weblog was about having fun sharing and receiving, and if you these days feel you spend more time sharing than receiving through this channel, then it’s time to stop. You’ll be missed, and your google-rank may drop, and in a few years you will think about your blog and shudder at the thought of what you wrote here, but by then it won’t really matter.
Do what you like, Jill. It gives the best results.
J. Nathan Matias
>>Do what you like, Jill. It gives the best results.
Agreed.
But I would like to point out something:
If you become one of the ungoogleable elite, what good is that? Who will know? 🙂
AndrÈ-S-C
Will your article also look at some of the evils ?
Jill
See, that’s kind of hte problem with the article.
And yeah, do what I like. And you’re right Nathan, it’d suck if nobody knew my success at being ungoogleable 😉
Erik
Remove your site from google.
Jill
Oh. Uh. Well, see, I don’t really want to do that….
Damn. You got me.
Andre S C
on the topic of Privacy, we’ve just locally launched something called eyespy, I designed the site for it, for a relativly expensive sms the idea is that the coresponding vehicle will be located
Andre S C
the interesting question is perhaps if that poster will be google-able ;- )