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. […]
jcwinnie
One of my readers*, Ingrid Jones of “ME and Ophelia”, chastised me for using the third person. And, admittedly, at times, I found it artificial. At other times it seemed to make more sense. When less egotistical, i.e., other than first person singular, a post can be easier to read. There is a certain style to a weblog that has multiple authors, yet the weblog seems to have a uniform style. Dave Barry’s blog goes so far as to speak as a blog, i.e., “This blog thinks…” In any case, it has been something that as a reader I have noticed.
*At least, she had said that she reads my weblog although she fails to list it in her blogroll. 🙁
kari
Fascinating–an illeist blog!
Anonymous
Sounds a lot like journalism–first person perspective tucked into a plain brown wrapper in the name of objectivity!
Mike
An interesting skip, from first to third, and one made by fiction writers all the time. Your wonderful work with Online Caroline and “Do You Think You’re A Part of This?”, Jill, leads one to wonder about another possible dimension for the weblog: the second person narrative. It seems you’re talking, with such narratives, about the pleasures of submission — and, indeed, such submission is a big part of the texts you mention, Calvino for instance, and even more a part of the menace felt in Thomas Pynchon’s use of the second person in Gravity’s Rainbow, or in stories by Julio Cortazar and Joyce Carol Oates.
But in a weblog, I think, there is an alternative to such a sense of submission, an alternative to the sense of coercion in the use of the second person. Use of the second person in weblogging feels, to me, like an extension of community, an explicit naming of the active role of not just reader, but respondent, interlocutor. I’d love to see a second-person weblog, one that makes clear without threat that — to use Marx’s borrowing from Horace — de te fabula. As it alway is: yes?
Lars
He decided to place his comments in his own blog, so as not to overly bore the readers of this one.
Gianna
Aussie writer Boynton did the third person thing for a very long time but I believe has recently switched to first person. Still, have a look through her archives if interested.
Norman
I THINK I use 3rd person most of the time, but can’t be sure. Thinking about it [but, due possibly to old age, unable to be sure] I suspect that I probably tend to write in 3rd person, unless doing so makes it seem a little artificial. Certainly, whenever I’m reading something, unless the item is purely personal, I appreciate it more when it’s in the 3rd person.
It had never struck me before, but you, Jill, are possibly the only regular user of 1st person I tend to read. Is that good or bad?
Jill
I’ll take it as a compliment 🙂