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. […]
Mitsu
(Now, isn’t calling it a “URI” a little confusing? More accurate, but the reality is, everybody calls it an URL, so we might as well just accept the slightly less accurate term for the sake of communication…)
These Mac tools make me want to switch to a Mac. I would if they had a low-power G5 laptop. I mean, Alamut has stopped writing all because of his beloved DevonThink. Available only for the Mac.
I suspect your spinning wheels of death would be alleviated by more RAM. Maybe a lot more RAM. But then again maybe not.
Patrik Svensson
Jill, don’t you think that endnote type applications represent an unattainable dream – being organized, having the computer do the work (ultimately manifested in a write-a-dissertation macro) and saving time. I love these programs have tried a whole bunch. My current favorite tool is Biblioscape – which to seems to be much more “modern” than most others (including Endnote which is pretty much a card box:). For instance it allows for web publishing and editing/adding through a web page (as well as the program itself).
snwbrdr-xyz
“…Cite-While-You-Write feature of Endnote, which is lovely because you can easily add references and reformat the bibliography at your leisure.”
Have you considered using LaTeX (in conjunction with Bibtex), rather than Word ? Takes a while to get used to it, but afterwards you never want to go back.