AI slop, artificial turf and volunteering – Weak threats and strong opportunities in 2025

This Weak Threats report of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency is the fourth one to be published. The report examines phenomena hiding in the blind spots of the future and present and smouldering under the surface. By weak threats, we mean signals of potentially adverse events or trends. We wish to emphasise in our report that while the future is unpredictable, we can influence it. With anticipation and imagination, we can also identify strong opportunities for different futures in the weak threats. This will help us build up our resilience and capability for bold thinking.

This year's weak threats differ somewhat from those observed in previous years. The current report only discusses one phenomenon directly related to technology and digitalisation, elucidating the role of AI in work organisations. This time we also look at a threat associated with eco-friendliness and the built environment, focusing on how small daily choices affect the environment. Everyday choices by which we inadvertently cause ecological impacts are also linked to the digital world, for example if we think about the electricity and water consumption of large language models. To finish with, we discuss the threat posed by a decline in volunteering in the context of social relationships. This change also affects our agency's work, as the third sector plays an important role in the ecosystem of digital support activities, for example. We have chosen these perspectives as we believe they can tell us something essential about the times we live in.

The threats derive from weak signals that we monitor throughout the year. We recommend that all public administration actors engaging in foresight activities collect not only mega and meso class drivers of change but also weak signals. Sitra provides a useful guide to support the monitoring and analysis of signals. We at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency have used various methods such as 2x2 matrixes,, critical layer analysis and vision boards to process the signals further.

To illustrate weak threats, we use different tensions. We have also identified new tension pairs, which highlight the impacts of AI language models on working life, in particular. They include authentic – biased, a good fit – crammed, and suspicion – trust.

Workplace atmosphere poisoned by AI

The discussion on the latest generation of AI technology has oscillated between two extremes. We have heard enraptured predictions of upheavals in working life and the labour market. Language model development has significantly accelerated the semiconductor business, which in turn has already changed global geoeconomics. However, Massachusetts Institute of Technology noted in its report that up to 95% of companies’ various generative AI projects do not actually increase efficiency in the organisation.

Stanford University has completed a study on how people actually use the new AI tools handed to them. The study found that generative artificial intelligence is used to create outputs that are acceptable on the surface but which in reality increase the workload through failure demand as they need to be corrected or simply redone.

This type of work-related AI slop passes the buck in the organisation’s workflow, as results that superficially look satisfactory cannot be trusted. In a survey, 40% of the respondents reported having encountered such AI slop, and 15% said it accounted for almost all content they came across in their work. Respondents said that up to 16% of the AI slop originates with the organisation's management.

 This phenomenon affects the social dynamics of the workplace, as the AI slop drives mistrust and suspicion towards colleagues. Employees who had to deal with AI slop also regarded their colleagues as less intelligent. Consequently, the survey found that poorly implemented AI projects poisoned the workplace atmosphere.

The weak threat of AI slop in the workplace helps us reflect on why solving problems can sometimes be difficult in today’s working life. Do such factors as rushing and forgetting about the lessons learned from previous projects, technological hype or organisational friction prevent us from questioning reforms? The reasons are likely to be many, but they stem from the everyday practices and culture of each organisation and its people. The strong opportunity arising from AI slop consequently consists of realising that in order to build effective use cases with AI, you must know their contexts and look at them with a human-centric approach. This is a viewpoint we also included in the joint report of the Social Insurance Institution and the Digital and Population Data Services Agency titled Changes in specialist work in the time of artificial intelligence. Rather than tools and goals handed from the top down, the key to the AI reform is experimentation!

Tension: A good fit – crammed, suspicion – trust.

Microplastics and microbiodiversity loss

The use of artificial turf has become more common in the gardens of Finnish terraced and detached houses. Artificial turf made from plastic is marketed as an easy, no-maintenance solution ideal for the busy lives of families with young children. Should you wish, you can always sow actual grass later when you have more time to potter around in the garden. A demanding working life eats into people’s leisure time, which can often become crammed with everyday chores, driving family members to their hobbies and meta work. The weak threat posed by plastic turf outside detached houses is an example of a simple decision of daily life that has a cumulative impact on our biosphere we never even notice. While biodiversity loss is a systemic problem, it is also caused by small, microscopic elements, for example when the shrubs and bushes in private gardens, parks and roadsides no longer provide habitats for pollinators.

The potential impacts of the artificial turf phenomenon are not limited to biodiversity loss. Researchers have noticed how a built environment designed to be nature poor also undermines human well-being, as we are no longer exposed to the natural microbiota in the same way. Researchers tell us that microplastics shed from the plastic turf spread far and wide in the environment. However, people have also woken up to such problems as biodiversity loss and the decline in pollinator populations, and as a countertrend to artificial turf, many have developed an interest in rewilding the gardens of their houses and holiday cottages and setting up insect hotels.

All our everyday choices, including garden solutions for detached houses, are mostly ruled by making things easy and practical. However, the link between individual choices and system-level impacts is abstract, at the very least: "I and my everyday actions are too small to make a difference." In terms of easier everyday choices, a great deal more innovation is still needed for housing that is within the planetary boundaries and fosters biodiversity.  This is where the strong opportunity of the phenomenon lies: the idea of micro-incentives to preventing biodiversity loss in daily life. What kind of micro-incentives could lower the practical threshold for turning nature-poor artificial turf into meadows?  Could the solutions include financial incentives, a property maintenance company with expertise in creating meadows, support provided by the city or municipality, a personal indicator of microbial exposure, or splendour of summer flowers you witness with your own eyes?

Tension: Invisible – visible, responsible – irresponsible

Building trust one tray bake at a time

Finland has been called the promised land of associations. However, at least sports clubs have witnessed a worrying weak threat in recent years, which is manifested as increasing difficulties in getting children’s parents involved in voluntary work for the club, as Yle writes in an article. Many parents would rather hand over money to keep the club running, and they see no benefit in spending their leisure time on supporting the child’s hobby. Rather than as an opportunity to do things together, children’s sports activities are seen as an outsourced or recreational service that enables parents to have some time for themselves. According to EU statistics, nearly 18% of the adult population volunteered in exercise or sport activities in 2009, compared to around 11% in 2022. Sports clubs are naturally not the only associations affected by this lack of volunteers.

Why has maximising personal benefit and optimising time use replaced the spirit of volunteering and participation? Parents’ time is money, and the hectic working life and probably also today's ethic of self-development compete for it. We identify something similar here as in another common phenomenon of social relationships: the cancellation culture, which refers to a tendency to cancel plans at the last minute and which has also been discussed on the media. These weak signals seem to indicate a change in how carefully we protect our time and its boundaries. The current discussion on remote work, which revolves around reconciling daily life and work, is also kin to it.

And what will we lose if such a weak threat gathers momentum? In the stranglehold of everyday pressures and individualisation, it may be difficult to see how people’s work input in voluntary activities can be more than the sum of its parts. As association activities lose their attraction, clubs start operating on a more professional basis, which increases the price of leisure activities and threatens to exclude some children and families from certain activities. As society appears increasingly polarised, more places for doing things and learning together are needed where mutual trust could be built. For example, club activities can help integrate both foreign-language speakers and those who speak Finnish as their mother tongue more closely into their residential area, as the example of Koivukylän Palloseura soccer club in Vantaa shows. We can build trust in our society one tray bake and training session at a time!

At the very least, a more relaxed daily life would free up resources for voluntary work, but we are also looking at a strong opportunity to reflect on what the new kind of volunteer spirit of the 2020s looks like. As the long-time club actors interviewed in Yle’s article note, in an increasingly individualised world you should invite people to participate individually, taking note of their resources and skills. Volunteering creates common good and social trust – but how could we make these intangible values visible?

Tension: shared – unique, a good fit – crammed