The State Duma has adopted a law on the regulation of AI technologies. What you need to know

Russia's first federal bill to support artificial intelligence technologies has passed a series of votes in the State Duma. If supported by the Federation Council and signed by the President of Russia, it will enter into force in September, and certain provisions will enter into force on March 1, 2027. What are the requirements for AI developers, how business interests were taken into account and why this is important - in the Izvestia article

Priorities of AI regulation

• The bill was the first attempt to regulate the field of AI nationwide. The document defines for the first time the concept of large fundamental models of artificial intelligence (BFM) as a computer program designed to perform intellectual tasks at a level comparable or superior to the results of human intellectual activity. The law applies only to fundamental AI models containing at least 1 billion parameters and designed to perform a large number of tasks. Examples of such models in Russia are YandexGPT and GigaChat.

• A risk-based approach will be applied to the development of technologies — that is, the main parameter will be the prevention of harm that AI can cause. Critical technologies should be under national control and can be used both for export and to replace outdated and foreign AI models. For the first time, the regulation of the AI sphere touches on moral and ethical aspects: developments should be carried out taking into account Russian spiritual and moral values.

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• The draft law defines the concept of sovereign and national AI models, for which training can provide access to data from federal information systems. Sovereign BFMs should be developed only by a Russian legal entity and ensure the possibility of full reproduction of the process, while national BFMs can use foreign components under an open license (when the copyright holder has authorized the use of their intellectual property), but the government has the right to specify the characteristics that the national BFMS should meet. However, all data must be stored in Russia.

Changes in the interests of business

• Before being submitted to the State Duma, the document underwent changes and was shortened by 13 articles. Initially, the bill contained a strict requirement for labeling content created using AI, but it was removed from the final document. Now it only prescribes the provision of an opportunity for the user to post an information warning about the generated content.

• The bill also relaxed the requirements for copyright compliance. Now the project obliges to notify BFM AI users about the ownership of intellectual property rights to a product obtained using the AI model. However, the use of intellectual property for the training of national and sovereign BFM is not a violation of copyright if the object of intellectual property that was used for training was lawfully acquired by the developer or was in the public domain. The restriction of such a rule only for national and sovereign BFMs has already caused controversy in the business environment, where unfair competition is feared.

• Legislators have met business halfway and removed the requirement for Russians to create models based on Russian data only, since all developments use foreign components and data sets. The document now allows BFM developers to cooperate internationally, insure risks in connection with the development, implementation and use of AI models, as well as liability insurance for harm.

• For the first time, the draft law establishes the concept of large fundamental models of artificial intelligence, their parameters and functionality, as well as legal and ethical criteria applied to developers. In fact, this is the first document regulating a completely new field of technology. That is why the provisions of the draft law are of a framework nature: lawyers have already noted conflicts in the issue of compliance with copyright and personal data laws, but certain aspects can be clarified in by-laws.