Putin Says West Cannot Have AI Monopoly So Russia Must Up Its Game

Russia President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned that the West should not be allowed to develop a monopoly in the sphere of AI, and said that a much more ambitious Russian strategy for the development of AI would be approved shortly. From a report: China and the United States are leading the development of AI, which many researchers and global leaders think will transform the world and revolutionise society in a way similar to the introduction of computers in the 20th century. Moscow has ambitions to be an AI power too, but its efforts have been set back due to the war in Ukraine which prompted many talented specialists to leave Russia and triggered Western sanctions that have hindered the country's high-tech imports.

Speaking to an AI conference in Moscow beside Sberbank CEO German Gref, Putin said that trying to ban AI was impossible despite the sometimes troubling ethical and social consequences of new technologies. 'You cannot ban something - if we ban it then it will develop somewhere else and we will fall behind,' Putin said of AI, though he said ethical questions should be resolved with reference to 'traditional' Russian culture. Putin cautioned that some Western online search systems and generative models ignored or even cancelled Russian language and culture. Such Western algorithms, he said, essentially thought Russia did not exist. 'Of course, the monopoly and domination of such systems, such alien systems is unacceptable and dangerous,' he said.

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