Visited the Russian AI Day at VDNKh

Yesterday I visited VDNKh, where the Russia pavilion hosted AI day. There were representatives of the government, other important people, as usual, they said a lot of the right words. Various aspects of the application of AI were discussed in several conference rooms.

I liked the speeches of the regional representatives; it is clear that Moscow has always been a leader in the use of artificial intelligence; anyone living there can observe how robots are gradually starting to answer hotlines like housing and communal services instead of people. They recognize speech quite adequately and create requests for various problems such as an uncleaned entrance or snow in the parking lot near the house.

In the Moscow region, AI is used in several areas: analysis of videos and photos from drones to identify illegal buildings, a network of 23 thousand cameras is checked twice a day by AI for uncleaned garbage cans and itself generates requests for their removal, and in the Moscow Region government service system helps make applications to make changes to the state real estate register.
But it’s not Moscow alone that makes everything move. A representative of Sakhalin told how they use AI to monitor the condition of the road surface; it recognizes damage and independently generates requests.

The representative of the Kaluga region made me laugh; he began his speech by explaining that on the slide his region is indicated as one of the leaders in the implementation of AI, which “is a slight exaggeration.” However, they use AI there too.

In another conference room, the impact of AI on education was discussed. There has been a lot of talk about how AI will allow for truly personalized learning, where each student will have their own teacher.

Well, we touched on the topic of the development of AI itself. We came to the conclusion that programmers are needed and will be needed for a long time. But there is a nuance. To develop AI, you need people who know mathematics well and have a high level of computer skills. But to use AI this is not so important.
What conclusions can be drawn?

AI, no matter what is meant by this term, will actively introduce itself into the work process, mainly replacing humans in processing routine procedures. And this gives people the opportunity to concentrate on solving more complex problems.
The development of AI is needed, but Russia really does not have enough capacity for this.
And most projects in Russia on the use of AI are carried out in cooperation with Sber.
Therefore, if you have not yet started using AI and are working in Russia, you better go there.
But Yandex is not so noticeable in this direction, I don’t know why.
I would be glad if you write in the comments how you are doing with the use of AI.