Paul M. H. Buvarp
I study what happens to knowledge when the machinery that carries it changes.
I am a senior research scientist at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, where I work on disinformation, influence operations and cognitive security. My research concerns the epistemic order that print built over five centuries, and the conditions now dismantling it.
Much of that work turns on a single claim: that the internet and what has been built on it (social media, artificial intelligence) is drastically altering society at a deeper level than we normally suggest.
I hold a doctorate in international relations from the University of St Andrews. I write regularly for a range of publications, including Aftenposten, Klassekampen, Samtiden and Vagant, and I am often found giving talks and lectures.
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Upcoming
Talks- 10 Sep
2026Skogen brenner: bullshit, desinformasjon og kunstig intelligens
- 10 Sep
2026 - 11 Sep
2026
Selected writing
The full index- 2026
- 2026
- 2026
- 2026
- 2025
- 2025
- 2023
- 2016
Latest
MarginaliaKunstig intelligens loves som inngangen til en tid med overflod og mindre arbeid. Men historien gir liten grunn til å tro at produktivitet alene skaper frihet. Spørsmålet er ikke hvor mye vi kan produsere, men hvem som eier det som produseres.
Demokratiets behov for svak makt NO
Monarkiets styrke har vært dets svakhet. Skal Norge bli republikk, bør statsoverhodet være svakt fordi det skal være det.
An Artefact of the Mass Media Age EN
The BBC was punished because the BBC could be punished. Our free-speech doctrine was calibrated for an architecture of scarcity that has gone.
Concepts
Language produced without a composing subject.
The condition of an audience that makes a falsehood liveable.
The failure of the shared procedures by which a society settles what is true.
The world's return as unreadable, without the meaning that accompanied the old enchantment.
The five centuries of print-shaped knowledge now closing behind us. Sauerberg's and Pettitt's term, not mine.