Artificial intelligence: new opportunities or missed profits?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming numerous aspects of our lives, from day-to-day interactions to global industrial processes. The biggest changes can be seen in the field of personalized services, where AI agents are beginning to play a key role. They are now capable of offering individual solutions, managing everything from orders to production processes, including 3D printing at home. AI is becoming not just a technology, but a fundamental element of the new economic and social reality. It is setting the direction for the development of many industries, and requires a comprehensive approach in relation to education, legislation, and innovation management. Those were the conclusions reached at a session entitled Artificial Intelligence: New Opportunities or Missed Profits?, which took place as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
KEY CONCLUSIONS
Artificial intelligence is a key area for the Russian economy
“Artificial intelligence is probably the most important topic for the life of our country. Certainly, as far as the economy is concerned, it is one of the most important and promising areas today. We are now passing the singularity, where technological progress is occurring at a very high speed. More and more, leading experts are talking about the development of strong AI. It used to be said that this would emerge in 10 years. That was revised to some time this decade, and then Elon Musk recently wrote that strong AI would appear next year. Technologies are approaching human capabilities at a cosmic speed of the kind not seen before. Big-tech leaders agree that the future lies with so-called AI agents. These are compact models that perform tasks for users, both in the virtual world and the physical, everyday one. Essentially, these will be personal assistants, and they are already starting to make inroads in various industries. A key area is their role as education assistants for schoolchildren and students. That is because it has been proven that personalized learning is at least twice as effective. AI is most needed by people in key areas of life, such as education, medicine, and science,” Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
Artificial intelligence helps improve efficiency
“A computer does not get tired, does not make mistakes, and has no malicious intent. A computer enables us to relieve our employees from having to make routine decisions which are simply a matter of reading instructions,” Vasiliy Nomokonov, Member of the Management Board, Executive Director, SIBUR.
There is great potential for accelerating AI learning
“There is expected to be a significant reduction in the cost of developing such models, and this is impossible without new architectures and new algorithms. <...> There is huge potential here,” Ivan Oseledets, General Director, AIRI – Artificial Intelligence Research Institute; Director, Center for Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkolTech).
Organizations that fail to implement AI risk losing their position in the market
“According to our calculations, artificial intelligence provided an additional RUB 1 trillion to GDP in 2023. Let’s see how artificial intelligence has come to be implemented in organizations. First of all, ChatGPT began to be implemented almost everywhere. Today we see that 72% of organizations have done this. I think that this figure will surpass 90% by as soon as 2025, and those that have not implemented it will simply lose their position in the market,” Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board, Sberbank.
PROBLEMS
A lack of specialists and teachers in the field of artificial intelligence
“We have a large number of developers in Russia, but we definitely need more. This figure is currently at 2,000, and they have developed a total of 2,500 solutions in the country. Clearly, this work will need to continue,” Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
“There are no teachers or specialists who could deliver an educational programme based on an integrated competence model. Therefore, it is crucial that we put together an integrated educational programme, along with the best teachers and specialists,” Vladimir Vasiliev, Rector, ITMO National Research University.
“We have a catastrophic shortage compared to what is needed. We have focused on education for a long time at Yandex. We are seeing more programmes, but not more teachers. The same ones are used everywhere,” Alexander Krainov, Director for Development of Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Yandex.
SOLUTIONS
Developing AI educational programmes
“Professionals are needed in three areas. First, there are the highly qualified specialists – a golden thousand are required. Then there are broader specialists and scientists – 4,500 are needed today. And then there are industry specialists who also possess expertise in artificial intelligence – about 10,000 of them are needed each year. So, we need 15,000–16,000 specialists to just maintain the level of competitiveness we have,” Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
“We need to think together about what to do to get more teachers who are capable of training the very best specialists. If we maintain our high pace... we will remain where we are with regard to various world rankings and achievements,” Alexander Krainov, Director for Development of Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Yandex.
* This is a translation of material that was originally generated in Russian using artificial intelligence.
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