What Would More Democratic A.I. Look Like?

Something curious is happening in Finland. Though much of the global debate around artificial intelligence (A.I.) has become concerned with unaccountable, proprietary systems that could control our lives, the Finnish government has instead decided to embrace the opportunity by rolling out a nationwide educational campaign. Conceived in 2017, shortly after Finland's A.I. strategy was announced, the government wants to rebuild the country's economy around the high-end opportunities of artificial intelligence, and has launched a national program to train 1 percent of the population -- that's 55,000 people -- in the basics of A.I. "We'll never have so much money that we will be the leader of artificial intelligence," said economic minister Mika Lintilä at the launch. "But how we use it -- that's something different." Artificial intelligence can have many positive applications, from being trained to identify cancerous cells in biopsy screenings, predict weather patterns that can help farmers increase their crop yields, and improve traffic efficiency.