Finland’s Artificial Intelligence Programme, final report

Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, 2019 (publication 2019:41), 133 pages. Page numbers are the printed ones. The ministry publishes the report here.

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Eleven key actions and 46 recommendations, none of them with a measurable target

What is left of a 133-page report without its cases, background and repetition. Recommendations carry the owner or deadline they name; unmarked ones name neither.

1What the report claims

The distinct claims, once the cases and background are gone.

The obstacle is not technology but understanding AI’s business potential, and a shortage of specialists (p. 47)
Business splits into a few forerunners and many beginners; experiments rarely reach production (p. 64)
Finland’s opening is B2B and “small data”, where the consumer giants do not dominate (pp. 52–53)
Finnish AI investment is small and fragmented; only strategically targeted money can register (p. 79)
About 9% of Finnish jobs were routine and easily automated, against about 30% in Germany (2015, p. 98)
The Public Procurement Act limits public–private co-development (pp. 48, 51)
2Recommendations: business, data, adoption

Key actions 1–3. Unmarked recommendations name neither an owner nor a target.

Key action 1: competitiveness (p. 48)
Continue the public–private steering group to remove obstacles such as legislation · owner: the steering group, whose term ended with the Government
Substantial, long-term funding for an AI research and innovation programme
Support testbeds and international cooperation within the Digital Innovation Hub network · in the 12-month list
Review the Public Procurement Act to allow co-development
Key action 2: data (p. 53)
Clarify the rules of data use through legislation, agreements and self-regulation · in the 12-month list
Sandboxes for data use, aimed later at portability of public-sector personal data
Develop small-data AI solutions
Develop data solutions for the B2B market · in the 12-month list
Enable large-scale secondary use of data; clarify primary use
Take the information policy report into account in future laws
Key action 3: faster adoption (p. 64)
Continue and expand the AI Accelerator model · in the 12-month list
Encourage companies to self-assess with tools such as the AI index
Maintain the Finnish AI Landscape list of top companies
Joint investment in shared test environments · owner: Business Finland, the Academy of Finland and companies
3Recommendations: skills and work

Key actions 4 and 9.

Key action 4: expertise and talent (pp. 73–74)
Extensive online courses for people in working life · in the 12-month list
Open university courses to anyone, in flexible modules
Bring AI into vocational education
Mechanisms for mobility between companies and research
Make Finnish AI expertise internationally visible
Support for the FCAI hub beyond flagship funding
A national R&D and innovation strategy for AI
Systematic partnerships with top institutions, e.g. in doctoral training
Keep investing in attracting and retaining talent; define which talent is needed
Key action 9: the nature of work (p. 98)
Target innovation funding at new kinds of production that create jobs
Explore a learning voucher or account for every working-age Finn · in the 12-month list
Smoother social-security transitions between work, study and unemployment
Job losses expected to be relatively small, but the nature of work changes in almost every job (p. 97)
4Recommendations: money, public services, cooperation

Key actions 5–7.

Key action 5: investment (p. 79)
Make existing funding channels respond to AI; strengthen them if necessary
Secure the ability to make major strategic and RDI investments · in the 12-month list
Keep a public–private dialogue on investment
Keep Business Finland’s AI capital funding as a permanent instrument · owner: Business Finland
Key action 6: public services (p. 85)
Build a human-centred service ecosystem around life events · owner: the AuroraAI programme, Ministry of Finance · in the 12-month list
Set up a team to support the operational change
Key action 7: collaboration (p. 90)
Monitor progress towards the programme’s objectives · owner: a public–private monitoring group, yet to be set up · in the 12-month list
Keep testing cross-administrative and cross-sectoral operating models
5Recommendations: Europe, ethics, security

Key actions 8, 10 and 11.

Key action 8: Europe (p. 94)
Influence the EU’s strategic priorities in digitalisation and AI
Make the AI-based digital economy a theme of the Finnish EU Presidency, second half of 2019 · owner: the Finnish Presidency · in the 12-month list
Bilateral AI cooperation inside and outside Europe
Key action 10: ethics and trust (p. 103)
Make Finland an international testbed for implementing AI ethics
Establish a national ethics council for technology
Build citizens’ ability to assess AI
Encourage self-regulation and shared good practice · in the 12-month list
More interdisciplinary research on AI’s societal impact
Continue international cooperation on AI ethics
Key action 11: security (p. 110)
Better foresight and risk identification in cybersecurity
Include AI’s threats and opportunities in the national cybersecurity strategy
Support the digital security ecosystem, its skills and RDI
6The international expert panel

Nine experts, five recommendations (pp. 38–39); none names an owner or a target.

Retain talent and attract more, students included
Invest in B2B, where unsupervised and hybrid methods suit Finnish industry
Respect democracy and freedom while letting business and public services benefit
AI is more than technology: user acceptance comes first
Break down data silos and allow data to move freely
7Measurable objectives

What the report offers in place of targets.

None of the 46 recommendations sets a number, and six name an owner
The 12-month list is the only time limit: eleven measures, no indicators (pp. 13–14)
The 2025 vision describes outcomes without a baseline, e.g. “more work and jobs have been created than what the change has eliminated” (p. 121)
The figures are funding already decided, e.g. EUR 100 million over four years for AI Business (p. 81)
Monitoring is recommended, but with no indicators to monitor (p. 90)
After the Government’s term, the next stage is “the task of the next Government and the network” (p. 118): who owns it?