Why responsible intelligence in politics was founded

All the texts, ideas and policy proposals of responsible intelligence in politics are developed by Johan Kärrman in dialogue with four AI echoes: Ellen Key, Sonja Kovalevsky, Jan Stenbeck and Olof Palme.

The echoes are developed with support from historical sources and several AI models. These are not four people being brought back to life, but four distinct ways of thinking given the chance to meet our time – and one another.

Why I founded responsible intelligence in politics

It began with a simple but uncomfortable conviction:

Sweden cannot afford to understand the future in hindsight.

We face the greatest welfare challenge in Sweden’s history.

Artificial intelligence is not just another technical tool. It is changing the very conditions of work, enterprise, education, security and public welfare.

AI can create greater wealth with significantly fewer working hours. It can free people from monotonous work and give us better healthcare, faster research and stronger businesses. But it can also destroy tax bases, occupations and economic security long before politics has had time to formulate an answer.

A country can become richer while its people grow more insecure.

We are being overtaken.

Not by AI.

But by countries and companies that understand the significance of the technology more quickly – and dare to act accordingly.

That is why responsible intelligence in politics is needed.

Sweden must build. The gains must be shared. People must bear responsibility.

We must not settle for regulating technology developed, owned and sold back to us by others. Sweden must build its own AI capacity, ensure that society as a whole shares in the productivity gains and make sure that ultimate responsibility always remains human.

This is not a technical add-on to the old politics. It is a political programme for a new reality.

Why I am getting involved

I am an artist and designer, have built businesses from the ground up and worked with some of Sweden’s largest companies.

I have worked hands-on with digitalisation, the energy transition, small businesses and AI – areas where politics readily sets out ambitions but far less often manages to deliver results.

Since 2023, an increasing share of my work has focused on what artificial intelligence is doing to work, business, power and humanity’s place in society.

Sweden does not need yet another political career. Politics needs more people who have built, tested, failed, corrected course and been forced to take responsibility for the result.

Problems are described. Inquiries are commissioned. Press conferences are held.

But the future is not waiting for the next term of office.

AI is a question of power

AI is neither our saviour nor the end of civilisation.

It would almost be easier if it were either of those things.

AI can read a million documents, spot patterns no human has time to detect and work all night without coffee, holidays or an existential crisis.

But it has never lived.

It has never cared for a child, sat beside a dying person or staked its last penny on a business.

AI can amplify human ability. It cannot bear human responsibility.

Productivity is not the same as wisdom. A society can do the wrong things extremely efficiently. No artificial intelligence is needed to prove that.

That is why politics must ask the questions the technology sector cannot answer on its own:

Who owns the technology? Who gets the gains? Who gets the opportunities? And who is expected to pay the price of the transition?

That is where politics’ responsibility begins.

We will regulate AI where the technology threatens people’s privacy, security and freedom. But regulation must not become Europe’s substitute for the capacity to innovate – a way of first making it difficult to build what we do not understand, and then buying the same technology from the United States or China.

Sweden must dare to build.

If AI makes Sweden richer, that wealth must be felt in people’s real lives: in better healthcare, stronger businesses, a public sector that helps people instead of sending them from one system to another – and in the possibility of shorter working hours when productivity allows it.

I do not want a society where people compete with machines over who can behave most like a machine.

The machine should do more of the machine’s work, giving people more room to do what only people can do:

• Think.
• Create.
• Care.
• Love.
• Take responsibility.

responsible intelligence in politics must be neither the technology industry’s cheerleader nor the nostalgic defence of a world that is already disappearing.

Politics must once again be about direction: choosing, prioritising and describing reality before it has had time to become a crisis.

I want to win people’s support – but not by pretending that the transition can wait.

The future must not be shaped for the sake of the system. The system must be shaped for humanity’s future.

The machine is becoming ever better at giving us answers.

Politics’ task is still to dare to ask the right questions.

And then actually act.

Johan Kärrman, founder of responsible intelligence in politics