Russian president signs law on developing AI technologies
MOSCOW. July 27 (Interfax) - The Russian president has signed a law regulating legal relations arising in the development, integration, use and application of large fundamental artificial intelligence (AI) models.
The corresponding document was published on the official legal information portal on Sunday.
The law defines large fundamental AI models as programs for electronic computers whose main characteristics are to carry out a large number of intellectual tasks on the same level as a human, provide information, make decisions or forecast results for targets set by a human operator. The program should also contain at least 1 billion parameters.
The law defines key concepts, including the technology itself and the principle of regulating relations connected to AI, and defines the powers of the president, the Russian government, federal executive authorities, other government bodies, government corporations and the Central Bank of Russia in the application of AI.
It also introduces two categories for AI models, sovereign and national, with the requirement that data processing for these is localized within Russia with the participation of Russian companies. The law also stipulates support measures for developers of the models, for example, the right to access data necessary for training models.
The law will also allow users to label audiovisual informational materials created using AI with a warning.
Considering the importance of safety considerations in the use of AI in "sensitive" areas such as government information systems, the law grants the Russian government the authority to define cases in which the exclusive use of sovereign and/or national large fundamental models will be permitted.
The law is aimed at creating the legal conditions for developing and integrating large fundamental AI models at a faster rate, ensuring national and technological independence, protecting the safety of individuals, society and the state in AI use, as well as raising the efficiency of state management and developing an innovative economy, the explanatory note accompanying the document says.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko has said that AI models must fully correspond to Russia's legislation and traditional spiritual and moral values and that the document lays out criteria which national and sovereign models must meet. "It was important for us to give Russian AI its own color, in order to support and incentivize its use in critically important fields," he said.
