Vladimir Putin unveils Russia’s new AI strategy to rival Western technology

27 November 2023 , 11:05

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Vladimir Putin is aiming to push his country ahead with AI technology advancements (Image: AP)

Vladimir Putin has unveiled his plans to create an AI model to rival "dangerous" Western technology that he says promotes "cancel Russian culture."

The leader has called on the country's tech sector to create its own advanced AI strategy due to Western support for Ukraine. He alleged that models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google ’s Bard chatbots are built in favour of the West.

Putin addressed an AI conference in Moscow on Friday and said: "Our innovations should rest on our traditional values [and] the wealth and beauty of the Russian language." He further said that one of Russia's largest oil producers, Gazprom Neft, is using AI to cut the cost of oil well development, reports Independent.

Vladimir Putin slammed Western AI models at the AI Journey conderence in Moscow (AP)

“I hope we will be more active in this area. When I say ‘we,’ I am referring not only to the government but also to the regions and industries, and individual plants,” he added.

The president said Russia would strengthen its research into the domains of generative AI and huge language models which are falling behind leading Western tools. He added that he wants the tech sector to better develop its top AI education programmes. “Our domestic models of artificial intelligence must reflect the entire wealth and diversity of world culture, the heritage, knowledge, and wisdom of all civilisations,” Putin said.

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Geoffrey Hinton, a British-Canadian computer scientist, labelled the “godfather of AI”, previously stressed that Putin and others could want to use them for "winning wars or manipulating electorates”. It has been reported that English-speaking countries dominate AI development as Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) said the US and UK were ahead of other countries with technology.

Studies have previously detected bias in AI models developed in English-speaking countries, with Facebook parent company, Meta, earlier warning that the majority of the training data included in its updated AI language model is in English. They admitted it “may not be suitable for use in other languages.” A study published in the journal Cell in the summer also revealed that GTP detectors often label words by non-native English speakers as AI-generated.

Monica Charsley