Artificial Intelligence Is Destined To Become The Key Resource For Achieving Russia's National Development Goals

(MENAFN- Mid-East Info) Moscow: AI Journey, an international conference on artificial intelligence and machine learning, has hosted the main panel discussion, AI for Humans: Helping People. Uniting Countries, featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin and moderated by Sberbank CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board Herman Gref.

Vladimir Putin noted that Russia has become an important platform for discussing advanced technologies, and Sber and the National AI Alliance play a crucial role in this. In the past year alone, artificial intelligence has changed the face of entire industries, including the creative industry.

AI technologies are expected to become the most important resource for achieving the country's national development goals, ensuring the strengthening of its defense capabilities, qualitative development of the economy and social sectors, public administration, and the growth of innovation. To successfully address these issues, Russia must become a world leader not only in the creation but also in the scale of application of artificial intelligence and its penetration into all spheres of our life without exception.

This year Sber's large language model GigaChat will, for the first time ever, process the questions of Russian citizens for the direct line with Vladimir Putin, which will be held on December 19, giving a full objective picture of what questions Russians are concerned about. These technologies will help create unique tools for feedback from citizens.

As Herman Gref noted, the analysis of the questions submitted for the call-in session showed that citizens are mostly concerned about urban development, public administration, education, social services, and healthcare. Artificial intelligence is able to provide effective solutions, which were shared by Russian and foreign experts who participated in the panel discussion.

For instance, Dr. Aisha Bin Bishr, an expert on global digital transformation and smart cities and former Director General of the Smart Dubai Office (UAE), gave examples of practical smart city solutions. Implemented smart city solutions have reduced crime in some areas of Dubai by 25% through data analytics. AI traffic lights now save every driver in Dubai 20 minutes a day, and traffic jams have been reduced by 15%. In general, the UAE is paying a lot of attention to the development of artificial intelligence: in 2017, the country became the first in the world to introduce the position of Minister of AI. And the prime minister of the UAE instructed all government agencies to analyze how generative artificial intelligence can improve their efficiency. The results speak for themselves.

Herman Gref emphasized that AI is also immensely useful in public administration. The Russian Ministry of Finance already uses AI in the budgeting process to correctly categorize budget expenditures and link funding to the required outcomes. At the regional level, a number of solutions have been implemented.

Dr. Song Haitao, President of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (SAIRI) and Director of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization's (UNIDO) International Centre of Excellence for Development of AI in Industry and Manufacturing, described how AI is improving the Chinese government's operations by automating data management, providing decision support, and optimizing resource allocation and budgets. AI is being used across a wide range of sectors in the Chinese economy and is attracting investors. In Shanghai alone, AI startups have attracted more than four billion yuan in investment.

In Russia, virtually all technology companies are investing in education, creating platforms for vocational training for schoolchildren and undergraduates, said Herman Gref. In their questions to the President of the Russian Federation, people refer to education as a very topical issue.

Aakash Guglani, senior policy associate at Digital India Foundation, emphasized the teacher shortage, estimated at 68 million teachers globally. The same number of students have no access to education, while 120,000 schools in India only have one teacher. Teachers are overburdened with administrative work. This is where the window of opportunity arises: AI can act as a mentor 24/7, customize courses for each student, and objectively assess learning outcomes. Howevewr, AI should complement the teacher instead of replacing them. Another important aspect is the sovereignty of data, which should not be in the hands of private companies alone.

Herman Gref added that artificial intelligence can still never replace a teacher. A high-quality upbringing can only be given by another person, and the teacher is a key figure. The prestige of the teacher's profession, freeing them from paperwork and giving back to students is the most important thing that technology can do.

Artificial intelligence also speeds up social welfare payments and benefits and improves the quality of such services, said Herman Gref. This is already being done in Lipetsk Region, and Olga Beloglazova, deputy governor of the region, spoke about it during the conference. More than 100 relief measures are available in Lipetsk Region. The adoption of an intelligent management system in this region has enabled process automation and reduced the time of service provision by half, while reducing the number of errors by a factor of ten. Accordingly, labor productivity has quadrupled. Soon, the region is set to reduce the time to distribute welfare by another half.

According to Herman Gref, artificial intelligence can accelerate scientific discoveries in medicine to an extent that progress in the next decade may be similar to progress made over the last 100 years. It is AI that can make medical services better and more accessible, and find new ways of providing medical care.

Victor Gombolevsky, a leading researcher at AIRI, an expert in radiation diagnostics, and a radiologist, named three tracks where artificial intelligence is particularly useful. These are access to medical care, its quality and the development of new drugs. Cardiovascular diseases are the primary cause of death worldwide. Thanks to AI, they can be detected at a very early stage. A digital assistant for the patient, powered by GigaChat, has already been created. It uses symptoms and research data, suggests the most likely diagnosis and the doctor a patient needs to go to.

Herman Gref emphasized that artificial intelligence is the key technology of the 21st century, having huge potential, but also posing risks. Five years ago, AI Alliance Russia was established at AI Journey. Now it already includes more than 800 Russian companies. All of them have signed the Code of AI Ethics. To unite efforts in driving AI worldwide, AI Journey 2024 has announced the establishment of the International AI Alliance Network with 18 participating associations from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Iran, China, Cuba, Morocco, Russia, Serbia, Tunisia, Chile, Ethiopia, and South Africa. This move should take stakeholders to the next level of cooperation, Herman Gref emphasized, to make AI efforts open and transparent so that artificial intelligence would be proper and balanced to meet the needs and state of society.

About PJSC Sberbank:

PJSC Sberbank is Russia's largest bank and a leading global financial institution. Holding almost one-third of aggregate Russian banking sector assets, Sberbank is the key lender to the national economy and one of the biggest deposit takers in Russia. The Government of the Russian Federation represented by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation is the principal shareholder of PJSC Sberbank owning 50% plus one voting share of the bank's authorized capital, with the remaining 50% minus one voting share held by domestic and international investors. It holds general banking license No. 1481 dd. August 11, 2015, from the Bank of Russia. Official websites of the bank: (Sberbank Group website), .

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