The AI Alliance has officially announced the establishment of a platform that fosters collaboration between businesses and universities. This platform aims to introduce innovative approaches to education in the field of artificial intelligence and address the pressing issue of staff shortages

Representatives from Alliance companies and prominent Russian universities discussed the methodology and key criteria for evaluating universities. The rating was initially presented at the AI Journey conference in November, supported as an essential tool for assessing the effectiveness of AI education by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Standardizing and centralizing datasets will enable the creation of a unified library containing reference metrics and benchmarks for machine learning (ML) models. This consolidated data will simplify the implementation of AI and enhance companies' ability to predict the outcomes of ML solutions more objectively, ultimately accelerating technological advancements

A number of tech companies and organizations have adopted The Code of Ethics in the field of Artificial Intelligence, developed by the Alliance in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The official ceremony where new members have joined the Code was held on Wednesday, November 10th during a major Russian conference AI Journey, organized by Sber. The code was adopted by Visionlabs, Nanosemantics, Cognitive Pilot, VEB Ventures, Speech Technology Center, Atlansys Software, ANO “Dialog”, Bauman MSTU.

The Code of Ethics in the field of Artificial Intelligence was opened for accession on October 26th. The document was first signed by the members of the Alliance (Yandex, MTS, VK, Sber, Gazprom Neft and the Russian Direct Investment Fund) and leading companies and research organizations. Afterwards a number of AI market players have submitted to the Alliance their declarations of adopting the Code and therefore committed to its standards and requirements. About 30 companies and organizations have joined the Code so far.

The Code of Ethics proclaims human-oriented and humanistic approach to the development of AI technology, principles of non-discrimination, data security and information security, identification of AI in communication with humans and respect for the autonomy of the human will, responsibility for the consequences of the use of AI. Adherence to the code of ethics will become a key element of the social responsibility for companies developing and implementing AI technology in Russia

The Code of ethics is intended to become a recommendation document on ethics for all participants in the AI market: government, business, Russian and foreign developers. The Code establishes general ethical principles and standards of conduct that can guide players in the field of artificial intelligence.

As a tool for implementing the above-mentioned principles and provisions, the Code provides for the creation of an AI ethics commission, appointment of ethics commissioners, as well as the possibility of creating collegial industry ethics bodies. The Alliance will also develop methodological recommendations and a set of best practices for solving emerging ethical issues in the life cycle of AI.

Alliance in the sphere of AI was founded by the leading Russian tech companies in order to collectively develop their expertise and advance the implementation of AI technology in education, science and business operations. Yandex, SBER, VK, Gazprom Neft, MTS and RDIF are the six members of the Alliance. Its mission is to be the center of AI development in Russia and ensure leadership of Russia and the members of the Alliance in the global tech market.

The Code of Ethics in the field of Artificial Intelligence, developed by the Alliance in the field of Artificial Intelligence, was adopted on Tuesday, October 26. The document was signed by the members of the Alliance (Yandex, MTS, VK, Sber, Gazprom Neft and the Russian Direct Investment Fund) and leading companies and research organizations.

The document was signed at the International Forum «Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: the beginning of trust», attended by First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia Sergey Kiriyenko and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.

The Code of Ethics proclaims human-oriented and humanistic approach to the development of AI technology, principles of non-discrimination, data security and information security, identification of AI in communication with humans and respect for the autonomy of the human will, responsibility for the consequences of the use of AI. Adherence to the code of ethics will become a key element of the social responsibility for companies developing and implementing AI technology in Russia.

The Code of ethics is intended to become a recommendation document on ethics for all participants in the AI market: government, business, Russian and foreign developers. The Code establishes general ethical principles and standards of conduct that can guide players in the field of artificial intelligence. As a tool for implementing the above-mentioned principles and provisions, the Code provides for the creation of an AI ethics commission, appointment of ethics commissioners, as well as the possibility of creating collegial industry ethics bodies. The Alliance will also develop methodological recommendations and a set of best practices for solving emerging ethical issues in the life cycle of AI.

Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy Chairman, Sberbank:

“The AI technology is widely considered controversial: on the one hand, AI is key to evolution, on the other hand, it has a certain level of independence in decision-making and it is not always obvious how exactly those decisions are made. This is why today we all have a common mission: to build trust in the AI technology. And that is impossible to accomplish without establishing rules for ethical use of this technology. I’m confident that the Code we signed today, to which Sberbank had considerably contributed, will mark an important step in gaining more trust for AI within the Russian society and as a result – in expanding the country’s AI industry”.

Vyacheslav Nikolaev, CEO, MTS:

“AI technology will soon lead us to new breakthroughs in the digitalization of healthcare and education — not to mention nearly every aspect of daily life. In addition, it’s already clear today that AI is a technology that is raising considerable social concerns. That makes now the right time to outline the guiding principles that will help ensure AI technology will be used for the benefit of society. At MTS, we have always prioritized ethics in product development, including AI technology, and we are happy to share our expertise in establishing the Russian Code of Ethics for Artificial Intelligence” Anatoly Braverman, First Deputy CEO, Russian Direct Investment Fund: “The formation and further development of the AI technology market requires effective cooperation of all of its players. Joint drafting, adoption and further use of the Code of Ethics are important benchmarks needed to put in place key infrastructure and help AI engineers, users and investors achieve success. The Russian Direct Investment Fund along with its co-investors and portfolio companies has traditionally given high priority to ethics and reputation and stands ready to actively share experience and borrow leading know-how and best practices”.

The Code of Ethics was developed with the support of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, the Analytical Center for the Government, the Ministry of Economic Development and underwent a series of expert and public discussions at ANO «Digital Economy», the Federation Council, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.

The full text of the Code of Ethics is available at http://a-ai.ru/code-of-ethics/

17 projects qualified for the final of the AI Russia Awards. In each of the main categories, the jury selected three most effective cases of business applications of artificial intelligence technologies. Five projects are shortlisted in the category "Significant Social Impact". The winners will be announced on June, 25 at the award ceremony.

More than 120 Russian AI implementation projects with proven economic efficiency applied for the AI Russia Awards. The Award was established by the Alliance for the development of artificial intelligence. The projects are published in the AI Russia Works library. The expert jury selected the finalists in four main business categories.

Shortlist in the category "Revenue Growth":
- a system for analyzing and predicting electricity consumption developed by PREDICT, Mail.ru Group. It allowed an electric company Rosseti Center to increase the indicator of determining commercial losses by 2.2 times;
- Dasha.AI. This calling service helped the company Alfa Strakhovanie to increase the number of renewals of third party liability insurance policies by 1.5 times;
- ML - HeadHunter's own solution for the selection of relevant job offers. It made possible to increase sales of job publications on hh.ru by 39.7% during one year.

Shortlist in the category "Cost reduction " includes cases from the field of agriculture, finance and industry:
- Cognitive Agro Pilot, the system of autonomous agricultural facilities management. It helped the agriculture enterprise "Pobeda" to reduce direct crop losses and fuel costs;
- the voice robot "Oleg" by Tinkoff. It saves 33 million rubles monthly for the bank by automating its call center; - "Monitoring-Predictive", the system of predictive diagnostics of electric motors. It allowed "Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works" to avoid long downtime of equipment and reduce costs.

Shortlist in the category "Productivity Growth":
- mobile app "Thermal Points", a map of all fires in the country with the function of notifying the authorities responsible for extinguishing. EMERCOM of Russia developed this app on the basis of an ML model selected at the WILDFIRE AI hackathon organized by Sberbank;
- an automated system that predicts the efficiency of acid treatment of wells and reduces the share of manual labor of specialists by 20%. It was developed by the team of Gazprom Neft;
- - the voice robot "Oleg" by Tinkoff. It receives 80% of incoming calls from customers and closes 10% of requests on its own.

Shortlist in the category "Quality Improvement" includes cases from the field of medicine and finance:
- "Celsus", a system for the analysis of medical images in radiology. It helped the Tambov Regional Oncological Clinical Dispensary to increase the number of cases of early diagnosis of breast cancer by 10%;
- Botkin.AI, a platform for CT image analysis. It allowed the Medical Information and Analytical Center of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District to increase the detection of lung cancer by 45%;

In the category "Significant Social Impact", the winners have been selected in the online voting which finished on May, 30. There are five projects:
- technology for sorting photos from drones "Beeline AI" - Search for people". It helps the volunteers of "Lisa Alert» to find the missing people;
- mobile app "Thermal Points" of the EMERCOM of Russia. It speeds up the response to wildfires;
- Botkin.AI, a platform for CT image analysis in the Medical Information and Analytical Center of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District;
- a technology of neural network-based hand gesture classification for highly functional prosthetics;
- "Robin", an assistive device for people with visual impairments. Without an Internet connection, it helps to recognize objects and people.

Another open voting on the award's website was selecting the finalist in the second special category "Popularizer of AI technologies". This is an award for personal contribution to the promotion of AI.

The winners in each category will be announced on June 25 at 18: 30 at the first awarding ceremony of AI Russia Awards. The online broadcast will be available on the website https://ai-russia.ru/awards

Six companies-Yandex, SBER, Mail.ru the Group, Gazprom Neft, MTS and RDIF have joined together to form the Alliance for the development of artificial intelligence. Among the tasks of the Association, for example, assistance with the creation of regulatory documents, support for education, and creation of personnel reserves in this area. More information about how the participants are going to change the IT sphere in Russia, the head of the Alliance Kirill Bulatov told TASS. About a year ago, CEOs realized that they had reached the point where development depends on how fast everything is moving around — how quickly laws are passed to help launch products, how widely technologies are being implemented in the public sector and business. The main prerequisite for the emergence of the Alliance was to combine interests for solving business problems of participants in the first place in the following areas: education, regulatory regulation, communication between market participants, implementation practices and attracting investment, General directions in the field of data analysis. Based on this, the principles of work are built, in which it is said that we do not attract funds from the state. The Association's budget consists of the money of the participating companies. We also focus on tasks that are more effective to solve together, while eliminating competition between members of the Alliance.

The Artificial Intelligence Journey (AI Journey) conference will be held on November 20-22, 2020. This is Russia's largest forum on artificial intelligence. AI Journey includes an online competition, a large-scale international conference and regional conferences in seven Russian cities, as well as the first AI Journey Junior conference for high school students interested in  AI technologies. All events in the series will be held online. The AI Journey international online conference will have a three-day format with dedicated scientific, business and regional days. The AI for Good event will include key topics like the latest developments in machine learning and data analysis, along with many others. AI Journey is a major platform for exchanging the latest information about artificial intelligence and its application in Russia and abroad. In 2019, AI Journey made it into the top five global DS/AI conferences, with about 9,000 participants from all over the world and more than 150 leading industry experts as speakers. Register for AI Journey events at  www.ai‑journey.ru

The Ministry of Economic Development has announced how law 258-FZ on “digital sandboxes” will work. It simplifies the rules for organizations that conduct experiments in AI and related areas. Each company can design their own specific implementation, but the plan will need to be approved by governement agencies and market participants.