Russia’s first domestically produced artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robot faceplanted during its first public demonstration this week, underscoring the challenges Russia faces in competing with more established leaders in AI and robotics like the U.S. and China.
The robot, named AIdol, was unveiled during a tech showcase at the Yarovit Hall Congress Center in Moscow on Monday. As the machine walked onto the stage accompanied by two handlers to “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme from the 1976 film Rocky, it waved to the audience before taking a few steps, losing its balance, and toppling over. — Read More
Tag Archives: Russia
Microsoft, OpenAI say U.S. rivals use artificial intelligence in hacking
Putin to boost AI work in Russia to fight a Western monopoly he says is ‘unacceptable and dangerous’
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced a plan to endorse a national strategy for the development of artificial intelligence, emphasizing that it’s essential to prevent a Western monopoly.
Speaking at an AI conference in Moscow, Putin noted that “it’s imperative to use Russian solutions in the field of creating reliable and transparent artificial intelligence systems that are also safe for humans.”
“Monopolistic dominance of such foreign technology in Russia is unacceptable, dangerous and inadmissible,” Putin said. Read More
Why business is booming for military AI startups
The invasion of Ukraine has prompted militaries to update their arsenals—and Silicon Valley stands to capitalize.
Exactly two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Alexander Karp, the CEO of data analytics company Palantir, made his pitch to European leaders. With war on their doorstep, Europeans ought to modernize their arsenals with Silicon Valley’s help, he argued in an open letter.
For Europe to “remain strong enough to defeat the threat of foreign occupation,” Karp wrote, countries need to embrace “the relationship between technology and the state, between disruptive companies that seek to dislodge the grip of entrenched contractors and the federal government ministries with funding.” Read More
Former Intelligence Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big Tech Monopoly Power is Vital to National Security
When the U.S. security state announces that Big Tech’s centralized censorship power must be preserved, we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves.
A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech’s power in its maximalist form. Any attempts to restrict Big Tech’s monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow. Read More
A.I. is on the front lines of the war in Ukraine
War is terrible. But it has often played a pivotal role in advancing technology. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is shaping up to be a key proving ground for artificial intelligence, for ill and, perhaps in a few instances, for good, too.
Civil society groups and A.I. researchers have been increasingly alarmed in recent years about the advent of lethal autonomous weapons systems—A.I.-enabled weapons with the ability to select targets and kill people without human oversight. This has led to a concerted effort at the United Nations to try to ban or at least restrict the use of such systems. But those talks have so far not resulted in much progress. Read More
Headline or Trend Line? Evaluating Chinese-Russian Collaboration in AI
China and Russia have declared 2020 and 2021 as years of scientific and technological innovation cooperation, focusing on biotech, artificial intelligence, and robotics.1 Both countries view AI as critical to their respective domestic and foreign policy objectives, and they are ramping up investments in AI-related research and development, though China’s investments far outweigh Russia’s. U.S. observers are watching this convergence between America’s two key competitors with increasing concern, if not alarm. Some worry that alignment between Beijing and Moscow, especially in the areas of science and technology, could accelerate the development of surveillance tools to enhance authoritarian control of domestic populations. Others warn that deepening Sino-Russian cooperation will dilute the effects of sanctions on Russia. Still others fear that the strengthening partnership between China and Russia will undermine U.S. strategic interests and those of its democratic allies in Europe and Asia.2
Chinese and Russian sources are keen to publicize their “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era,” potentially underscoring the seriousness of their joint ambitions.3 Yet the scale and scope of this emerging partnership deserve closer scrutiny, particularly in the field of AI. To what extent are China and Russia following up on their declared intentions to foster joint research, development, and commercialization of AI-related technologies? In other words, how do we separate headlines from trend lines?
This issue brief analyzes the scope of cooperation and relative trends between China and Russia in two key metrics of AI development: research publications and investment. Read More
Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy in Russia
The Russian leadership views the ability to innovate as one of the hallmarks of a great power and sees military innovation as essential to Russia’s overall defense posture in a changing threat environment. The goals of Russia’s artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous
ecosystem are best understood within the context of Russia’s economic development and
modernization efforts, and include those initiatives aimed at the improvement of the well being of Russian citizens as well as the conditions for business and entrepreneurial activity.
The following report details the Russian AI ecosystem and is part of a yearlong effort,
conducted on behalf of the Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), to
understand the evolving field of AI and autonomy in Russia. While focusing on AI and
autonomy, the report also seeks to place AI within the larger technological environment in
Russia Read More
The AI arms race has us on the road to Armageddon
It’s now a given that countries worldwide are battling for AI supremacy. To date, most of the public discussion surrounding this competition has focused on commercial gains flowing from the technology. But the AI arms race for military applications is racing ahead as well, and concerned scientists, academics, and AI industry leaders have been sounding the alarm.
Compared to existing military capabilities, AI-enabled technology can make decisions on the battlefield with mathematical speed and accuracy and never get tired. However, countries and organizations developing this tech are only just beginning to articulate ideas about how ethics will influence the wars of the near future. Clearly, the development of AI-enabled autonomous weapons systems will raise significant risks for instability and conflict escalation. However, calls to ban these weapons are unlikely to succeed.
In an era of rising military tensions and risk, leading militaries worldwide are moving ahead with AI-enabled weapons and decision support, seeking leading-edge battlefield and security applications. The military potential of these weapons is substantial, but ethical concerns are largely being brushed aside. Already they are in use to guard ships against small boat attacks, search for terrorists, stand sentry, and destroy adversary air defenses. Read More
Russia May Have Found a New Way to Censor the Internet
In an attempt to silence Twitter, the Kremlin appears to have developed novel techniques to restrict online content.
Russia has implemented a novel censorship method in an ongoing effort to silence Twitter. Instead of blocking the social media site outright, the country is using previously unseen techniques to slow traffic to a crawl and make the site all but unusable for people inside the country.
Research published Tuesday says that the throttling slows traffic traveling between Twitter and Russia-based end users to a paltry 128 kbps. Whereas past internet censorship techniques used by Russia and other nation-states have relied on simple blocking, slowing traffic passing to and from a widely used internet service is a relatively new technique that provides benefits for the censoring party. Read More
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