11 September 2023
KEY CONCLUSIONS
Russia needs a unified digital platform for the accelerated development of industry and
business
“The digital era has
arrived, yet digitalization has not arrived at enterprises. At best, components
of automation have arrived. Why? First, there is no basic system to introduce
industrial digitalization. Second, there is no
unified digital platform or domestic software. Managers and employees have also
shown that they are not ready for digitalization. A huge number of local
software systems and platforms have been developed and operate independently of
each other in the country, and this prevents industrial enterprises and
businesses from interacting and being competitive,” First Deputy Chairman of
the Russian State Duma’s Committee on Regional Policy and Local Self-Government
Sergey Morozov said.
“In theory, business
is interested in the digital rights market. We conducted a survey late last
year and almost 60% of companies noted the appeal of tools that are based on
the circulation of digital rights. The situation looks much more modest
taking into account this common interest,” Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs President Alexander Shokhin said.
Developing AI means introducing
labelling for the content it produces
“Everything produced
by AI must be labelled.
Moreover, a decision has to be taken about this first, because I think we can only use identification to combat the scope of
disinformation created by AI that we will encounter in the near future,” Senator of the
Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Alexander Shenderyuk-Zhidkov said.
PROBLEMS
Lack of a unified
platform to regulate digitalization and lawyers trained in this area
“We still don’t have
a single federal department that brings together science, technology, technology policy, the
digitalization of industry, and the digital economy […] We don’t have a final
decision at the government level whether to regard artificial intelligence as
first among the highest technological
priorities. But our economic rivals do […] We don’t have a single centre to
regulate and work out all the issues related to digitalization and artificial
intelligence,” Morozov said.
“The second aspect
of training lawyers is the mandatory presence of digital expertise. Today, a
specialist must not only understand digital technologies and the digital economy, but must also be able to use these digital tools in his/her
activities. It should be noted that digital economics is not always taught to
lawyers. That means our lawyers don’t always understand what a digital economy
is because it relates to economic disciplines […] I
simply don’t have a standard to provide lawyers with this digital economy,”
Synergy University Rector Artem Vasilyev said.
SOLUTIONS
Create a federal council on digital sovereignty and law
“We need to
immediately create a council on digital sovereignty and law, and preferably
under the Russian president. It must ensure the preparation of a national
project that combines the development of the digital economy, technology, and artificial intelligence. We need a law on artificial
intelligence and digital sovereignty. We have an understanding of what we could
put into this law. We need to accelerate work on creating both an artificial
intelligence standard itself and a set of rules
concerning all areas of human activity in the digital environment. And, of
course, we must adopt legislative measures to stimulate business to use artificial intelligence and digital technologies. This
is crucial to catching up with our economic rivals as quickly as possible,”
Morozov said.
Develop clear
criteria for incorporating digital technologies into business
“Everyone understands the situation in which
business finds itself due to the departure of major foreign IT players and
vendors, and, essentially, the unilateral refusal to fulfil obligations. This
new reality has created a large number of legal forks and grey areas. The mandatory
software licensing initiative is obviously intended to solve one of these
problems, but there are a number of nuances. The inability to pay the copyright
holder doesn’t mean that the company using the software is doing this for free.
Moreover, money has already been paid for the product. Alternative support often
costs more than vendor support. In this regard, we need clear criteria and
conditions to apply the mandatory licensing procedure to not only take into
account the use of such software, but also the consequences that have arisen
and are arising for business due to the unilateral departure of the vendor,” State Secretary – Vice
President, Norilsk Nickel Dmitry Pristanskov said.
“I think it would be interesting to give our business
the opportunity to not only use the digital rouble, but also the digital
currencies of countries that have friendly relations with us,”
Shenderyuk-Zhidkov said.
For more information, visit the
Roscongress Foundation’s Information and Analytical System at roscongress.org/en.