New prison labor in Finland provokes controversy: prisoners form artificial intelligence systems

Technological solutions are not strange the prison environment. In addition to increasingly sophisticated surveillance systems, the use of robots and clothing devices in Hong Kong prisons is an example of this convergence. Futurism, useful to have greater control over the activity of the detainees.

Now, a new cross between these scenes is generating controversy in Finland. Prison in this European country to train artificial intelligence systems in prison work.

Picking and shovel new age

Paid jobs are common in prisons around the world and have not been limited to physical work for many years. This can be done for the institution itself or for external business partners, as in this case in Finland.

According to the site The edge, nail start-up employs detainees in this country to collect data and form algorithms.

This is Vainu, a company that is developing a database that brings businesses together with qualified employees. For this, he must train the system with readings. In practice, it asks humans to read commercial articles published on the Internet and then mark the data that will use their algorithms.

This enterprise did not have any problem with english, but with other languages ​​such as finnish. The only person forced to enter this language was not enough and that is why they contacted the Finnish Criminal Sanctions Agency (CSA), which controls the prisons of the country north-east of l & # 39; Europe. As explained by one of the company's managers, this entity has its headquarters in the same building as the company. start-up.

We believe that collaboration will have a positive impact on the employment opportunities that prisoners will see in the future, "they explain.

They have sealed an agreement valid for all 2019, by which the CSA selects prisoners who are engaged in the aforementioned task related to the research and development of artificial intelligence. This is happening in prisons in Turku and Helsinki.

Vainu hopes to extend this practice to other prisons in Finland and in other countries.

Although from the prison service, they celebrated this link by pointing out that allows prisoners to insert them into modern professional life, there are those who emphasize that this program is a means of labor exploitation that benefits from cheap labor.

The University of California professor, Sarah T. Roberts, mentioned by the source mentioned, said that this work does not involve any technical challenge or the acquisition of technological skills or knowledgebecause it consists of "routine, servile and repetitive" tasks.

"This work would not go through an ethics review board," Roberts said.

In response to these comments, the company Vainu has released a series of tweets to defend this form of contract. They stress that they "offer detainees a non-physical working modality" and that their salary is in accordance with Finnish law. "We believe that the collaboration will have a positive impact on the employment opportunities that the detainees will have in the future," they concluded.