On Friday, November 24th local time, Russian President Putin stated that the West cannot form a monopoly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and that Russia will soon approve a new AI development strategy.
Putin attended an AI conference in Moscow on Friday with German Gref, CEO of the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation. He stated that although new technologies can sometimes bring unsettling moral and social consequences, it is impossible to attempt to ban AI.
Putin said when talking about AI, "You cannot ban something - if we ban it, it will develop elsewhere and we will fall behind." However, he emphasized that the ethical issues involved in developing AI should be addressed in reference to traditional Russian culture.
Putin pointed out that some Western online search systems and generative models have ignored or even eliminated Russian language and culture. He said that this Western algorithm essentially believes that Russia does not exist.
Putin warned that it is unacceptable and dangerous for the West to form a monopoly in the field of AI. He pointed out that with the development of AI, humanity has opened a new chapter in various fields of life, and Russia needs to increase its ambition and execution power in developing AI.
According to most rankings, China and the United States are far ahead of other countries in AI research, while European countries are in the second tier, with India, Russia, Israel, South Korea, and Japan also occupying a place.
However, for Russia, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a large number of Russian talents flowed out, and western sanctions led to the reduction of cooperation between the country and the western AI powers.
Putin announced at the meeting, "In the near future, as the first step, (I) will sign a presidential decree and approve a new version of the national AI development strategy."
Putin stated that the new AI strategy will make significant changes, including expanding basic and applied research in the fields of generative AI and large-scale language models.
Putin said that Russian researchers should have better opportunities to access supercomputers, which means that supercomputers need to be upgraded by an order of magnitude, and at the same time, Russia's top scientific education on AI needs to be improved.
Putin said that Russia must amend its laws, strengthen international cooperation, and ensure more investment for the development of AI.