In Finland, prisoners have been participating in AI annotation tasks, such as labelling and classifying data, as part of their rehabilitation.
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00:00AI is reshaping the world, and while many of us are scrambling to keep pace,
00:05some are entirely cut off from these changes, such as prisoners.
00:09But what if behind bars they are already contributing to AI?
00:13In Finland, prisoners have been participating in AI annotation tasks,
00:17such as labeling and classifying data as part of a rehabilitation program for the past two years.
00:24AI systems need human input when they are being developed,
00:28especially when dealing with languages like Finnish, which is spoken by only 5 million people globally.
00:34This creates challenges in a high-wage economy like Finland, where hiring native speakers can be costly.
00:41Our software tries to interpret text material and different details about construction projects.
00:50So then we need to teach the language models to understand Finnish language and to understand the construction context.
00:58I was a summer trainee 10 years ago at the Ministry of Justice, and I happened to know the organization.
01:06So then I just contacted the criminal sanctions agency and started having discussions about this type of idea,
01:16and they were immediately really excited about it.
01:18This initiative, in collaboration with the market data startup, aims to reduce recidivism by equipping inmates with modern skills.
01:26The so-called normality principle is important.
01:30So we try to keep the prison conditions as normal as possible,
01:37compared to normal society and other citizens and the rights that any citizen can have,
01:44regardless of whether he's in prison or not.
01:47Instead of traditional prison tasks like sewing, cleaning, and doing laundry,
01:52inmates at three closed prisons in Finland can participate in AI labeling work.
01:57They have a specific interface that is designed by the startup company.
02:02The interface shows them pieces of text that are from municipal decision-making documents, for example, like building permits.
02:11And then there's a question about the text.
02:14So does this text involve granting a building permit? And then they say yes or no.
02:20While data annotation is crucial for building AI systems, tasks are often repetitive and mundane.
02:27This work has raised ethical concerns globally,
02:30especially after companies like OpenAI and Google were criticized for outsourcing data labeling to low-paid workers.
02:38However, the Finnish authorities say that the prisoners are fairly compensated.
02:43The compensation is exactly the same for prisoners doing AI work as for those prisoners doing any other type of prison work.
02:52So it's fair.
02:55And we have to remember that comparing open labor market to what prisoners are doing in prison is not the same situation.
03:04Prisoners don't have to pay for their living or food or basic maintenance or things like this during incarceration.
03:14Researchers monitoring the project say that the strict regulations in Finnish prisons ensure safer working conditions than similar jobs outside the system.
03:24People assume that there's something fishy must be going on, right?
03:29So there's a prison and there's AI and there's tech companies.
03:33And what we know about data work in general, we know that usually it's low-pay work.
03:39Interestingly, when looking at what happens in the prison, I don't think this is a useful frame.
03:45It's good to give the prisoners something to do, to have structure in the day, to help them adjust to the eventual release back to the civilian life.
03:57So that you would have slightly more likelihood of not committing more crimes when you are released in the civilian life.
04:07And data work in general is seen as really helpful in this.
04:12However, both prison officials and researchers caution that such programs are limited in scope and should focus on rehabilitation.
04:21What people tell me in the prison and the prison officials say that this, like, given that the purpose is rehabilitation, this cannot expand too much.
04:29And there's no, like, prison population to do this.
04:33If Finns or Finnish companies or Finnish AI developers need lots of data in Finnish, they have to look elsewhere than the prison.
04:43The purpose for this in the prison is rehabilitation.
04:46The purpose is not to create lots of data for Finnish companies.
04:50The Finnish authorities say that AI work and smart prison projects are unique,
04:55and other Nordic and European countries have sought consultation on prison digitalization projects.