“In the coming decade, we will need to carry out a digital transformation of our country, all of Russia, and introduce AI technology and big data analysis everywhere,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said last week. However, even as the country implements the technology “everywhere”, it “must rely on sovereign technological achievements,” he added. The country’s public administration will be the first to make this shift, Putin said. “Billions of rubles will go towards the digital transformation of public administration and shifting almost all public services to an e-format. Most of them will be provided automatically, on an as-needed basis and proactively. For example, when a family has a child, the algorithms will issue the necessary papers and certificates, including the ones needed for obtaining maternity capital,” he added. However, while the country has to focus on developing a public ecosystem which is convenient and user friendly, it also has to be “safe in terms of personal data protection”. To accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence in Russia, Putin recommended: That the government should submit to parliament draft laws on experimental legal frameworks for the use of AI technologies in individual economic and social sectors. By the first quarter of 2021, Russia should have a draft law to provide neural network developers with access to big data, including state big data. The government will have to adopt a digital transformation strategy for ten key sectors of Russia’s economy, to introduce AI algorithms so that they can serve as assistants to doctors, help in city planning, and transportation, among others. Push for AI in education: Training courses, and AI and big data analysis modules should be made part of the curricula across all areas of professional activities, per Putin. “This means that starting next academic year, future medical doctors, teachers, agronomists and lawyers,…
