Vainu

History

2019: Use of prisoners for training of artificial intelligence

At the end of March, 2019 it became known that concluded in two Finnish prisons began to use for training of artificial intelligence for Vainu startup.

Vainu creates the extensive database of the companies worldwide which helps employers to find contractors. AI is capable to select necessary pages, but at first it needs to be trained in the principles of such selection. Articles in English did not cause difficulties – the startup easily found persons interested to earn by setup of algorithms of AI for Amazon Mechanical Turk. However Finnish carriers much less.

In Finland prisoners were decided to be involved in training of artificial intelligence

The problem was solved by coincidence – offices Vainu are in the same building, as the Agency headquarters according to criminal sanctions of Finland (CSA), government organization which controls the Finnish prisons. Partnership began in January, 2019, and by March Vainu began to work already with two prisons in Helsinki and Turku. Slightly less than 100 people are involved in accomplishment of tasks for several hours in day. The startup provided to prisoners ten computers and pays CSA for each carried-out task, and the paid amounts are comparable to the salary of the workers employed on the website of Mechanical Turk. However, the share of the means issued to prisoners is defined by CSA. Besides, only the management of prisons has the right to select prisoners for accomplishment of this work.

Vainu and CSA signed the annual contract, and the startup hopes to expand the activity by involvement of new prisoners in Finland and other countries. Certainly, one of the reasons inducing prisoners to undertake such task, earning money is, but Vainu submits the project as an opportunity to develop skills in the field of work with AI. However actually these tasks have "a zero learning curve" and require only normal literacy.^[1]

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