What do you think, Finland?

Finns want to be able to easily influence decision-making and common issues online. However, on social media the opinions of the loudest people are heard, and there is a risk that many are left out.

The “What do you think, Finland?” discussions are a solution developed by Sitra to map citizens’ views through constructive dialogue.

The discussions are held on an online platform called Voxit (previously known as Polis). With its help, citizens’ opinions can be mapped in a way that aims for consensus.

The Voxit platform has been used, among other things, in many welfare areas in projects funded and supported by Sitra. Lessons have been compiled in a Sitra working paper (in Finnish).

To strengthen democracy in Finland, we need agile ways to participate in public affairs.

Based on open source code, Voxit is an internationally tested online platform developed for democracy. In Taiwan, it was used to determine the conditions under which the taxi company Uber could operate on the island.

The platform allows a constructive discussion of a chosen topic, anonymously and without fuss. It provides information about what participants agree on, what they disagree on, and into which groups we are divided. This allows us to seek consensus rather than getting bogged down in disagreement.

The platform was developed by the US-based Computational Democracy organisation. Sitra was the first in Finland to adopt the platform.

What do you think about AI, Finland?

New technologies and AI can help improve productivity in the public sector and thereby safeguard high-quality public services in a tightening economic climate.

However, many studies show that public trust in AI and its developers is low – both internationally and in Finland.

It is important that everyone has the opportunity to participate in the discussion on the use of AI, as it will affect all of our daily lives. That’s why we invited citizens to share their views on the use of AI in public services.

The discussion was open from 5 to 28 September on the Voxit platform, designed for constructive dialogue. Participation was easy and did not require any special expertise or prior knowledge of AI. At the beginning of the discussion, it was also possible to propose own statements to ensure that important perspectives were included.

The discussion was organised by Sitra and the technology consultancy Reaktor. Their experts then analysed the results. The aim was to increase understanding of what kinds of solutions could help build public trust in AI-powered public services. The material was used to create a technical rulebook that can serve as training data for language models, for example in public digital services that use automated decision-making. No similar rulebook based on citizens’ views has been created anywhere in the world before.

Read more in Sitra memorandum: Participatory AI development model – A citizen dialogue on the use of AI in public services.

Read discussion analysis: What do you think about AI, Finland?

“What do you think, Finland?”

In the first “What do you think, Finland?” discussion, Finns were able to take a stand on the direction of Finland by voting on proposed solutions and adding their own ideas for others to vote on.

The “What do you think, Finland?” discussion began on International Democracy Day, September 15, 2023, and continued for four weeks. A total of 18,000 Finns participated in the discussion.

Based on the experiment, it can be said that Finns agree on many societal issues more than the intense media debate might suggest. Many statements, such as promoting sustainable consumption and physical activity, received strong support from the participants.

Differences also emerged. The Voxit platform used in the experiment identified two distinct opinion groups among the participants, named reformers and preservers.

The groups differed most clearly in their attitudes towards value issues such as freedom of speech, racism, gender definition, and drug policy. Still, up to 40 percent of the statements up for voting achieved consensus in both opinion groups. Explore the results of the discussion in the compilation report.