AI and Autonomy in Russia Issue 29, January 10, 2022

The Artificial Intelligence in Russia newsletter features a summary of recent Russian-language reports on the Russian AI and autonomy ecosystem, divided into the following sections:

• Governance and Legal Developments
• Military and Security Developments
• Corporate and Market Developments
• Education and Training Developments
• International Collaboration
• Spotlight: Koalitsiya-SV Artillery System

The following preview shows the first item in this issue: 

1. Russian parliament develops draft bill to regulate robot-human relations

Lawmakers in the Federation Council (upper house of Russia’s parliament) have developed a draft bill that defines and classifies robots and provides principles of robot-human relations. TASS writes that the bill defines a robot as the “product of achievements of digital technologies, consisting of two or more component parts, controlled by means of a computer program embedded in it and capable of both performing actions pre-programmed by a person and autonomous problem solving.” The proposed classification includes two categories, civilian robots and services robots (the latter category includes military), and four classes of danger levels depending on the “the degree of danger of causing harm to the interests of the individual, society and the state protected by law.” It also states that robots could be guided and autonomous.

According to TASS, the draft proposes to regulate robot-human relations “based on the following principles: well-being of a person and a citizen; security of an individual, society and state; regulatory impact based on a risk-based approach; safety of robotic technologies; openness of information about robotic technologies.” It also proposes a registry of robot models and components and lays out avenues of government involvement in relevant taxation issues, as well as financial and other types of support.

Finally, it explicitly bans “the circulation of robots that have the ability to independently make decisions and are able to act on the basis of an independently formulated behavioral algorithm, which are deliberately given properties to ensure their use with the use of weapons, its main parts, ammunition, explosives and explosive devices or other weapons,” as well as robots that could be used to deliver weapons of mass destruction. The draft bill has been sent to the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media for feedback and input.