President Putin: Western AI technology 'selective and biased, ignoring Russian culture'

Speaking at the plenary session of the AI ​​Journey 2023 forum, the Russian leader noted that new technologies are increasingly penetrating all areas of the country's socio-economic life. As an example, President Putin pointed to how AI is currently being used in the fuel and energy sector to significantly reduce costs and solve complex problems of safe logistics along the Northern Sea Route.

President Putin stressed the “growing trust of citizens” in “revolutionary technology.” “Our citizens understand that AI makes everyday processes simpler and more convenient, improves the quality of governance and the mechanism of providing public services,” he said.

Mr. Putin went on to note the rapid development of creative AI, capable of generating images and text, calling the emergence of this technology “a remarkable achievement of human intelligence.” However, he acknowledged that such developments also raise questions about the ethical, moral, and social implications of the technology. “It is simply impossible to ban it, technology will develop anyway,” Mr. Putin said. “If we ban something, it will be developed elsewhere.”

President Putin pointed out that if Russia tries to block the development of AI technology, the country will fall behind the rest of the world, and affirmed that this view is shared by “all those” who have the opportunity to develop AI.

According to Mr. Putin, modern Western AI systems and search engines are mainly intended for Western markets and often operate in a “selective and biased way, not taking into account and sometimes simply ignoring and canceling Russian culture.”

He believes that in the era of technological revolution, “cultural and spiritual heritage is the key factor in preserving national identity”. He stressed the importance of taking advantage of Russian solutions to create “a reliable, transparent and safe artificial intelligence system for humans”.