“We are almost talking about a war for the minds of citizens” – Kommersant FM

OpenAI commented on the situation with the alleged launch of ChatGPT on “Government Services”. The company emphasized that its service is not represented in Russia and is not officially available. At the same time, the Ministry of Digital Development said that the robot “Max” will be introduced as an assistant at State Services, and the Russian language model will be integrated into it. The technology is planned to be launched in test mode this year. Kommersant FM columnist Mikhail Gurevich thought about the role of artificial intelligence in public administration.

Microsoft has regained its status as the most valuable company in the world. The gap from Apple is still minimal, but, according to analysts, the “soft” corporation has a good chance of retaining first place. The reason is successful investments in the gaming industry and, most importantly, active participation in the development of artificial intelligence.

The extent of Microsoft’s involvement in this area is amazing. A deal is currently being discussed to invest $10 billion in ChatGPT developer OpenAI. According to reports, in the fourth quarter of last year alone, corporate profits grew by 33%, all thanks to investments in AI. “Microsoft is firmly established as a leader in the artificial intelligence race,” said Jeremy Goldman of Insider Intelligence, and suggested that this leadership will help the brainchild of Bill Gates to seriously increase advertising revenues.

And other experts believe that the integration of AI capabilities into the operating system and office suite of applications will make it possible to make a real revolution. Not much will change, but literally everything: interaction with a computer will turn into communication with the person closest to you, or whatever, the person. It sounds extremely promising and a little scary. Although ordinary users most likely have nothing to fear.

But competitors are already sounding the alarm. Moreover, both corporate ones, such as Google or Apple, and entire states. And if direct competitors see Microsoft’s developments as exclusively a market threat, then for some countries the development of AI is fraught with a much greater danger. We are talking almost about a war for the minds of citizens.

Apparently, the Kremlin thinks so too. Speaking at the Digital Almaty forum in Kazakhstan, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said: “When allowing AI solutions into critical industries, for example, science, medicine, industry, it is important to use models that meet our own national interests. And we take this into account.”

This is because Western and domestic developments, according to the Prime Minister, have different pictures of the world and different understandings of what is “good” and what is “bad.”

This approach no longer just hints at preferences for domestic artificial intelligence projects, but also at a readiness for ideological confrontation with Western computer systems.

It is difficult to say where the new Windows, which in the very near future will be imbued with services from ChatGPT, cease to be a simple operating system and begin to threaten the security of the country, and most importantly, what to do in this case.

Russia is actively developing AI systems, but we are very far from the Americans and Chinese. This means that at some point we will have to make a choice whose views on “good” and “bad” suit us best and whose ecosystem we will join. According to many visionaries, this decision is akin to choosing an economic model for the country’s development. Therefore, Microsoft’s leadership and Mishustin’s words are not ordinary news from the news feed, but literally crossing the Rubicon.

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