Finnish City Espoo Pioneers Civic AI With Education and Explainability

While civic leaders believe AI could help reinvent government services, they are also aware of citizens' profound privacy concerns. To navigate this challenge, the Finnish city of Espoo is conducting experiments that mix consultations, transparency, and limited use cases to demonstrate the potential of civic AI. From a report: Espoo has already conducted AI trials that initially required overcoming technical hurdles but ultimately improved city services. Over the long-term, the city is crafting a model that places ethics at the center of its AI plans by ensuring citizens can understand how these systems work and participate in debates about their implementation. Though the plan is still very much in its early stages, the city hopes to blaze a trail that other governments can follow. "I think Finns trust the government and the public sector more than [citizens] in any country in Europe," said Tomas Lehtinen, data analyst consultant for Espoo. "We wanted to keep that trust in the future. And so we wanted to be transparent about this project for citizens, but also because many of our employees also don't understand AI."

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