Artificial Intelligence in Russia Issue 8, August 14, 2020

The Artificial Intelligence in Russia newsletter features a summary of recent Russian-language reports on the Russian AI and autonomy ecosystem, divided into the following sections:

• Governance and Legal Developments
• Military and Security Developments
• Corporate and Market Developments
• Education and Training Developments
• Article: MOD officials describe "intellectualization" of Russian armed forces in key General Staff journal
• Spotlight: An Autonomous Kamaz

The following preview shows the first item in this issue:

1. Putin signs experimental legal regime law

On July 31, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed the bill “On Experimental Legal Regimes in the Field of Digital Innovation in the Russian Federation” into law, and it will enter into force 180 days from that date. The main goal of the law is to create the legal conditions for accelerated development and adoption of new goods and services related to digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, neurotechnologies, and quantum technologies. Essentially, this so-called “regulatory sandbox” allows for the removal of certain legal restrictions in order to allow those creating and implementing digital innovations to more easily introduce them and observe their utility. According to the law’s authors, the law will foster the development of science, competition in the marketplace, the formation of new types of economic activity, decreases in the costs of entrepreneurial activity, and increases in the efficiency in public administration. This is part of the Russian government’s effort to develop regulatory regimes that would allow for experimentation with AI-enabled technologies and services, in order to determine how Russia can best use artificial intelligence in society.

After the law passed, the Ministry of Economic Development submitted a draft resolution on the law’s implementation and published the draft on its site for public comment. The draft specifically puts forth a proposed list of technologies included in the experimental legal regime (see Table 1), following on from earlier regulatory exemptions the ministry had proposed. As reported in issue 6 of AI in Russia, the first projects accepted under the experimental legal regime will include the creation of robot hotels, the launch of cargo transport by drones, the commercial use of self-driving cars, the remote conclusion of contracts for communications services, the use of voice antifraud services to protect consumers, the selection of optimal areas of operation for small and micro-businesses, and the introduction of AI in medicine and telemedicine technologies.

Regulatory sandboxes are already in operation in a number of other countries, including the UK, the US, Australia, and Canada. According to the chairman of the State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, “[I]n the IT industry it is critically important not to miss the moment and to keep up with other countries. The special regime will make it possible to apply new digital technologies and test their usefulness in practice.