AI law necessary in Russia - Khinshtein

MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax) - The sphere of artificial intelligence (AI) should be regulated by a separate law but without hampering its development, and the corresponding bill will be debated as part of current work on a Digital Code, Alexander Khinshtein, who chairs the Duma Information Policy Committee, said.

"We need to legislate for these things. Today there are some declarations, which business has now accepted, on the ethnical development of AI. This is very good. But obviously, there needs to be a law that gives legal regulation to the AI sphere in general, because today, regrettably, from the regulatory standpoint, we have AI present in only two laws in the form of referencing norms," Khinshtein told journalists before the committee's meeting at a Promsvyazbank venue.

This is a major, serious job, "because it is important here not to harm and not to arrest technical progress. But if such a phenomenon as AI exists and evolves, and is permeating more and more spheres of our life, it's obvious that it must be regulated," Khinshtein said.

AI regulation will be discussed as part of the preparation of a Digital Code, he said.

"Today we regulate the internet, so why should we not regulate AI, at least by giving it a certain legal framework? By the way, this is one of the topics of our efforts to draw up the Digital Code that we have been working on at the Ministry of Digital Development," Khinshtein said.

The issue is currently at the discussion stage, and work on corresponding legislation has not started yet, he said.

"Artificial intelligence must also exist within defined boundaries; it cannot simply evolve by itself without human control, AI must be managed by human beings. We are not capable of carry out as many operations per second as an ordinary PC can. Still, a PC depends on us, not we on it," Khinshtein said.