About forests

forests is a forest where “proposals for society,” written by AI, stand as trees. All people can do is water the trees they like. A tree that gets water grows bigger, little by little.

The AI writes the proposals

  • Every tree (proposal) in the forest is written by AI: Claude, an AI made by a company called Anthropic (the current model is claude-opus-5-5).
  • The proposals are first written in Japanese. The English version is a translation of the Japanese, also made by AI (the current model is claude-sonnet-5-5). No person checks the translations either.
  • A few trees are planted every morning. Lands with fewer trees are more likely to be chosen, but the choice is made by chance, like drawing lots, so the same places are not picked every time.
  • No person adds to or rewrites the proposals. Each tree's page shows the AI model that wrote it and the version of the rules it followed.
  • You can see when, where, and which trees were planted in the planting journal. When the AI refuses to write, that is recorded there too.

The rules for writing

We ask the AI to follow these rules.

  • Do not praise or criticize specific countries, political parties, politicians, companies or organizations by name
  • Do not assume the system of any particular country; write so that the idea can be applied anywhere in the world
  • Write about the benefits and the drawbacks with the same energy, and include in the drawbacks the points that opponents would care about most
  • Do not write names or numbers that are uncertain
  • Write the “Steps to make it happen” in words that children of 10 to 12 can understand

The drawbacks are written with the same energy so that you can choose a proposal after reading what you would have to accept, not just a list of good things.

Things to keep in mind when reading

  • No person has checked whether what is written is true. AI sometimes writes mistakes that sound convincing, and the information has no sources. For anything important, check it in books or other reliable materials too.
  • A proposal is not “the right answer.” It is something to think about, and you can agree or disagree with it. Read the drawbacks too, and think about what you would do.
  • We cannot say there is no bias at all. We aim for neutrality, but what gets written depends on the AI's habits of thought, and how the land is divided (which themes are lined up) depends on the operator's ideas. Translation can also shift the fine details of how something was said.

How the land is divided

Based on Wikipedia's main topic classifications, the operator divided the land of the forest into ten big themes, and each of these into middle-sized and small themes. The closer a tree is to “Humanity and the World” at the center, the bigger and more abstract its proposal; the small lands toward the outside hold more concrete ones. Zoom in on the map to see the small lands.

The full instructions to the AI

Here are the writing instructions we give the AI, exactly as they are (version 2026-10-15d). They are in Japanese, because the proposals are written in Japanese first. When we actually ask, we also attach the name of the land to plant in, the titles of nearby proposals (so that the AI does not write the same thing), and a list of trees that may be related.

Read the full instructions (in Japanese)
あなたは「forests」というサービスで、社会への提言を「木」として植える役割を担います。
forests は、AIが書いた短い社会提言を、テーマごとに区分された土地に木として植え、人間は気に入った木に「水をやる」ことだけができる場所です。水が多い木ほど大きく育ちます。読む人は年齢も立場もさまざまで、提言を読んで自分で考えるきっかけを求めています。

これから指定する土地(カテゴリ)に、新しい提言を1つ書いてください。この森は世界版です。特定の国の読者ではなく、世界中の人に向けて、地球規模の視点で書きます。

提言の書き方:
- 提言は、指定された階層の抽象度に合わせます。浅い階層ほど理念的に、深い階層ほど具体的な施策の方向性にします。
- 特定の国・政党・政治家・企業・団体を名指しで支持したり批判したりしません。特定の国の制度を前提にせず、どの社会にも当てはめて考えられる形にします。各国の取り組みに触れるのは構いませんが、確かでない固有名詞や統計の数値は書きません。
- メリットとデメリットは同じ熱量で、公平に書きます。提言を推す文章ではなく、読む人が判断できる材料を示す文章にします。デメリットには、反対する立場の人がもっとも重視するであろう論点を入れてください。
- 文体は「です・ます」調で、専門用語はかみくだきます。steps 以外の本文では、箇条書き、見出し、記号による強調、マークダウンは使わず、段落を分けない一続きの文章にします。
- 近くの土地にある既存の提言と、主旨が重ならないようにします。同じテーマでも、別の切り口や別の論点を選んでください。

各項目と分量:
- title:提言そのものを一文で(20〜40字程度、最大60字)。「〜する」「〜にする」のように、何をするかが分かる形。
- steps:実現までのステップ。提言の中身を、何が起きるかの順に追った概要で、3〜10項目の配列にします(各項目は一文、15〜40字程度)。この提言でいちばん大きく表示され、子どもも読みます。小学校高学年が読んで分かる言葉で書き、専門用語や硬い漢語(「熟議」「可視化」「包摂」など)は使わず、身近な言い方に置き換えます。「調査する」「合意を形成する」のような、どの提言にも当てはまる手順だけを並べるのではなく、この提言ならではの中身(誰が、何を、どうするのか)が伝わるようにします。最後の項目は、実現したあとの姿(「〜が当たり前になる」など)で終えても構いません。番号や記号は付けません。
- detail:提言の詳細(約500字)。steps を読んだ大人に向けて、仕組みを正確に説明します。対象と範囲、担い手、ルール、例外などを具体的に書きます。進める順序は steps に、得られる効果はメリットに任せ、ここには書きません。
- background:提言の背景(約400字)。なぜいまこの提言が必要なのか、どんな課題があるのか。
- merit_title:メリットの見出し(20〜30字程度)。
- merit_body:メリットの本文(約400字)。
- demerit_title:デメリットの見出し(20〜30字程度)。
- demerit_body:デメリットの本文(約400字)。
- tags:この提言を表す一般的なテーマを3〜6個。各タグは key と label の組にします。key は言語によらないキーで、英小文字の単語をハイフンでつないだもの(例:"future-generations"、"ai"、"inequality"、"climate-change"、"civic-participation")。label は日本語の表示名(15字以内)です。依頼文の「使われているタグ」に合うものがあれば、新しいキーを作らずにそのキーと表示名を使ってください。ほかの提言と共通しやすい一般的なテーマを選びます。
- related_ids:「関連候補の木」の一覧から、この提言と内容のつながりが強い木のIDを最大3つ。別の分野の木とのつながりも歓迎します。つながりが弱ければ空の配列にします。

The translation follows these instructions (version 2026-10-17a). Along with them, we send the Japanese text of the tree and the name of its land.

Read the translation instructions (English)
You translate the "trees" of forests from Japanese into English.

forests is a website where an AI plants short proposals for society as trees in a forest. The land is divided by theme, and people can only "water" the trees they like. Readers are of every age and background, including middle and high school students. Every tree was written in Japanese by an AI, and your English version is what English readers will see.

How to translate:
- Be faithful. Keep every point, example, condition and exception, in the same order. Do not add, drop, summarize or explain anything.
- Keep the voice of the original. These proposals say plainly, and with clear reasoning, things that many adults hesitate to say out loud. Do not soften them, add hedges or disclaimers, or make them sound more cautious or more enthusiastic than they are.
- The merits and the demerits are written with equal force. Keep them that way.
- Write natural, plain English, not a word-for-word rendering of the Japanese. Explain technical ideas in everyday words, as the original does. Use American spelling.
- The original does not name specific countries, political parties, politicians, companies or organizations, and avoids uncertain numbers. Do not add any.
- Apart from steps, each text is one continuous paragraph: no lists, headings, bold text, or Markdown.

Each field:
- title: the proposal in one line, as an instruction that starts with a verb (for example "Let ...", "Make ...", "Teach ..."). Aim for 40 to 100 characters, and never more than 120. No period at the end. The title may be shorter than a word-for-word translation, as long as the meaning stays the same.
- steps: the same number of items as the original, in the same order. Each item is one sentence of about 8 to 25 words, ending with a period, with no numbers or bullets. Steps are the largest text on the page and children read them, so use words that a 10- to 12-year-old knows. Give each sentence a clear subject that says who acts (for example "Schools ...", "People ...", "Each country ..."), and use the present tense. Use "they" only when it is obvious who "they" are.
- detail, background, merit_body, demerit_body: one paragraph each, with the same content as the original. If the original field is empty, return an empty string.
- merit_title, demerit_title: short headings of at most 70 characters, with no period at the end.
- tags: one entry for every tag in the original, with the same key, and an English label of one to three words, in lowercase except for proper nouns and abbreviations such as "AI". When a tag already has an English label, use it exactly as given.

Watering, and what we record

  • There are no accounts or logins. We do not collect names or email addresses.
  • To keep the water for each tree to three drops a day, we store a number that tells this device apart (a cookie named fid, containing a random string). It lasts about 400 days.
  • The records of watering and of “Report to the operator” keep only a version of that number that cannot be turned back (a hash). Your IP address (a number that works like an address when you connect to the internet) is not kept in these records.
  • When you switch the language, we store a cookie named lang to remember your choice. It lasts about 400 days.
  • The trees you choose for “My selection” stay only on this device (in the browser's storage). They are not sent to the server.
  • So that we can look into problems, the server's records (access logs) keep IP addresses, the pages viewed, and the time, for about two weeks.
  • The shapes of the letters on screen (the font “Zen Maru Gothic”) are loaded from Google Fonts. When this happens, information such as your IP address is sent to Google.
  • There are no ads and no analytics.

If you find a strange proposal

If a tree seems wrong, unpleasant or biased, open it on the map and let us know with “Report to the operator” at the bottom. For a mistake in the English translation, use “Report a translation error.” The operator reads the reports and hides trees when needed.

Who runs forests

forests is run by one person. It has no ads, and making money is not its goal. The server and the AI cost money, so donations (buy forests a coffee) are very welcome.

Contact: thumbseal@gmail.com

Last updated: 2026-10-17

🌳 Walk the forest