On September 5, 2024, the chairman of IIS Board of Directors Yuri Hohlov answered questions from a Novye Izvestia correspondent regarding the problems of access to YouTube resources.

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I do not understand what this is about from a legal point of view. In this case, no one has made a legal decision to block (or slow down) traffic in relation to the YouTube platform. In our country, such actions are taken only by court order. Therefore, no one can demand to slow down or speed up traffic to this or that resource. If we talk specifically about YouTube, then our national operator Rostelecom warned back in mid-July 2024 about a serious overload of Google equipment designed to cache video hosting content. And that this affects the download speed and quality of playback of YouTube videos.

What will happen to YouTube if the equipment degradation continues? As in other cases, users (albeit not immediately) will go to other platforms. Have you visited Rambler lately? There was a time when it was the number one portal in the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, successfully competing with Yandex. Or LiveJournal, which was quite popular until competitors with more convenient services appeared, and now only devoted fans remain on LiveJournal. As soon as web sites cease to be convenient for the user, he goes to where he is offered the best conditions. If there is poor access to YouTube in the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, the user will go to Rutube or VK Video. Only enthusiasts or those who are attached to YouTube will remain.

Source: Novye Izvestia

On September 7, 2023, the Institute of the Information Society celebrated its 26th anniversary.

The area of professional activity of IIS is research, analytics and consulting, legislative, publishing and educational activities on a wide range of problems of information society and knowledge economy, as well as R&D and system integration in the field of creating modern information technologies, including design and implementation of different ICT solutions from the infrastructure level to the level of applied expert systems.

The institute’s customers are federal and regional authorities, federal scientific foundations, large commercial companies, state unitary enterprises, state institutions, universities, research institutes (including the RAS systems), non-profit organizations, international organizations.

The IIS achievements list includes a number of major projects: conceptual and methodological documents of national and international significance; projects for the development, implementation and examination of projects related to the electronic development of Russian regions; analytical reports on the readiness of Russia and its regions for the information society, which have been published regularly since 2001.

In total, the Institute has held more than a hundred events at the regional, national and international levels, published over 30 books on a range of problems of the information society.

Since 1999, the Institute, together with the Russian Engineering Academy, has been the publisher of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society”, the only publication in Russia that comprehensively and systematically covers the problems of the information society development. In 2010, the journal was included in the List of leading peer-reviewed scientific journals and publications, approved by the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, and in 2015 it confirmed its status. Also, in 2015, the journal was included in the Russian Science Citation Index on the Web of Science platform.

Leading experts of the institute have participated in the implementation of a number of initiatives promoting the use of ICT for comprehensive development in Russia, in particular: Public Expert Council of the Moscow City Duma in the direction of “Information, Informatization, Communications, Telecommunications and Television” (1998-2001), then transformed into the Public Expert Council of the Moscow City Duma on the Development of the Information Society (2002-2006); Council under the President of Russia for the Development of the Information Society (2009-2012); expert council under the Government of the Russian Federation (2014-2018); Council for Digital Transformation of ANO “Digital Economy”; the working groups of ANO “Digital Economy” on digital governance and artificial intelligence; subcommittee “Data” (PC 02) as part of the Technical Committee for Standardization “Artificial Intelligence” (TC 164) on the basis of RVC, etc.

Institute leaders at the highest expert level participated in international initiatives, including The Global Bangemann Challenge (1998-1999), then converted to the Stockholm Challenge (2000-2010); Global Junior Challenge (1999-2009); The Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) (2000-2001); UN ICT Task Force (2002-2005); Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID) (2006-2012); WSIS Action Line C7 e-Government of the action plan for the implementation of the decisions of the World Summit on the Information Society (2012-2017); Working Group on the Measurement and Evaluation Tool for E-Participation Readiness (METEP), formed by the Division of Governance and Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2013-2015), etc. The Institute today employs people of various specialties, ages and nationalities. They constitute a powerful intellectual and creative union of like-minded people, thanks to which the Institute was able to overcome all difficulties and become a recognized “expert of the first choice”, an independent leader of Russia in the development of the information society.

We congratulate all IIS employees and partners on the 26th anniversary of the company and wish you all good health, good mood and enduring faith in success!

Please meet the fourth issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2024. The main theme of the issue is Large-scale dissemination of digital technologies. The articles in this issue cover the following topics:

Ethics in the field of artificial intelligence
Digital communications and the modern young generation
Business modeling of media
Media consumption among the youth of Donbass
Legal restrictions on the use of AI technologies
Regulation of the quantum communications industry
Technological solutions in oil and gas production and the agro-food sector
Technological capabilities of tax administration
Application of modern digital technologies in insurance
Features of the information society in Tanzania

In her address to readers “Technology: burden and benefit,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

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“It is a mistake to think that technological innovations have a one-sided effect. All technology is both a burden and a blessing: never either-or, but always both.”

These are certainly true words by Neil Postman, an American writer, educator, media theorist, and cultural critic, the author of eighteen books, including Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992), The Vanishing of Childhood (1994), and The End of Education: Reassessing the School System (1995). As a humanist, Postman believed that “new technologies can never replace human values.

His media theory was influenced by the French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul and the Canadian sociologist and philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan, whose works I studied with interest 17 years ago while working on the book The Information Society Is Us!

So Ellul surprised me a lot by considering it useless to differentiate technology from its use, because technology generates specific social and psychological effects that do not depend on people’s desires. Therefore, he said, there should be no place for moral considerations in the process of using technology. That’s it, no more, no less! However, some time later he turned to neoconservatism and even began to advocate curbing technical progress. He already considered the technical system a means of oppression and called it one of the factors of human alienation. In his last works, the scientist returned to liberal positions and even went so far as to say that the information society, being “the implementation of ideas of a socialist, anarchist and pacifist nature”, generally presupposes the liquidation of the state, which he called bureaucratic. Such vacillations took place in his life for thirty years.

As for McLuhan, one of his main research topics was connected with the use of technology as a way of expanding human capabilities. Its essence is that the content of any message is inevitably influenced by the technology used to disseminate it. He argued that the emergence of technology brings significant changes to human communication with the outside world (both natural and social) and reorganizes their way of perceiving the world and their way of life. He viewed technology as an extension of the human body and believed that it eventually separates from the human and gains power over him, acquires its own (far from human) logic and imposes this logic on man, whether he wants it or not. In the face of this alienated technological infrastructure, the human turns out to be a weak and dependent creature, with a strange optimism losing himself, like Narcissus, paralyzed by his reflection in the water.

Returning to the quote by Neil Postman, let us not forget about the complex nature of human use of technology. This “double-edged sword” will always remain in the center of attention of researchers. And our authors are no exception. Today, one of the most popular topics among our authors is artificial intelligence with its enormous possibilities and inevitable dangers. But when forming our editorial portfolio, we try to achieve a balance of topics and different points of view.

On August 29, 2024, the VII Extended Meeting of the Technical Committee for Standardization TC 164 “Artificial Intelligence” was held.

The event was held in a hybrid format at the HSE. The participants of the event were representatives of TC 164 member organizations and interested organizations, specialized federal executive authorities, as well as related technical committees for standardization.

The following representatives spoke at the meeting:

Sergey Garbuk, Chairman of TC 164

• On the main results, tasks and problematic issues of TC 164
• On the implementation of decisions of the VI Extended Meeting of TC 164
• On the proposals of TC 164 for the National Standardization Program for 2025

Maria Penkova, Executive Secretary of TC 164

• On the results of TC 164 for the first half of 2024
• On achieving the results planned within the framework of the federal project “Artificial Intelligence” in terms of creating a set of national standards in the field of AI
• On amendments to the composition of TC 164

Anton Vladzimirsky, Deputy Chairman of PC01/TC 164

• On the results of the activities and work plans of PC01 “Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare”

Yuri Hohlov, Chairman of PC02/TC 164, Chairman of IIS Board of Directors

• On the results of the activities and work plans of PC02 “Data”

Elena Fedoseenkova, executive secretary of PC03/TK164

• On the results of the activities and work plans of PC03 “Artificial intelligence in the road transport complex”

Agop Khatlamadzhiyan, deputy general director of JSC “NIIAS”

• On the creation of a subcommittee on “Artificial intelligence in railway transport” on the basis of the organization

The heads of working groups in the field of applying artificial intelligence in crime investigation (A.A. Bessonov), in education (V.A. Dzedik), in industry (E.B. Shantayev), in agriculture (Z.A. Godzhayev), in urban electric transport (D.G. Plotnikov) also made reports at the meeting.

Following the results of the VII Extended Meeting of TC 164, the following decisions were made:

• The activities of TC 164 during the reporting period are recognized as satisfactory
• Recommend that the Working Groups continue their activities, paying particular attention to coordinating proposals (“industry roadmaps” for AI standardization) with government regulators in the relevant areas of activity and related TCs on standardization
• Approve the consolidated proposals of TC 164 in the National Standardization Program for 2025
• Approve the inclusion of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center – All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics named after acad. Zababakhin, JSC NIIAS, Ar Soft LLC
• Support the proposal of JSC NIIAS to create a subcommittee PC04 “Artificial Intelligence in Railway Transport” with the assignment of functions for maintaining the secretariat of PC04 to JSC NIIAS
• Recommend that the secretariat of TC 164 contact the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation with a proposal to consider the possibility of taking into account in the federal project “Artificial Intelligence” works related to the development of standardization and conformity assessment systems in the field of artificial intelligence
• Recommend that the secretariat of TC 164 consider the possibility of forming a register of scientific publications that facilitate the implementation of national standards of TC 164, and make it publicly available on the website
• Recommend that the secretariat of TC 164, together with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), plan a number of events dedicated to the issues of standardization of processes for the development and application of artificial intelligence systems, with the participation of the heads of the relevant Working Groups of the secretariat of TC 164 and interested specialized organizations that are part of the RSPP

The meeting was also attended by IIS General Director Alexander Katin.

The meeting materials are available on the TC 164 website: video recording, presentations (in Russian).

On June 26, 2024, the fourth meeting of the Scientific Seminar on International Regulation of Artificial Intelligence was held, which is regularly conducted by the Technical Committee for Standardization “Artificial Intelligence” (TC 164).

As part of the event, reports were made by Yuri Hohlov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute of the Information Society, Chairman of the Subcommittee “Data” (TC 164/PC 02) with a report “Landscape of Standardization of Working with Data for Artificial Intelligence” and
Andrey Khramtsovsky, an expert of the IIS and the Subcommittee “Data” (TC 164/PC 02) with a report on the progress of developing the international standard ISO/IEC 5259-1 “Data quality for analytics and machine learning (ML). Part 1: Overview, terminology, and examples”, and its harmonization at the national level as a modified GOST R standard “Artificial Intelligence. Data quality for analytics and machine learning. Part 1. Overview, terminology, and examples”.

Following the discussion at the seminar on international regulation, it was considered appropriate to develop a national standard supplementing the ISO/IEC 5259 series “Data quality for analytics and machine learning (ML).”

More details on the materials and decisions made at the meeting of the Scientific Seminar on International Regulation can be found on the TC 164 website.

On August 14, 2024, the prominent mathematician and our friend Alexander Mikhailovich Elizarov celebrates his 70th anniversary.

He was born in 1954 in the village of Dolgoe, Irshavsky district, Zakarpattia region. In 1976, he graduated with honors from Kazan State University (KSU, since 2010 – Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University, KFU) with a degree in Mathematics.

In 1976-1978, he worked as an intern-teacher and assistant at the Department of Differential Equations, Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of KSU. In 1978, he entered graduate school at the Department of Mathematical Analysis of KSU, which he graduated ahead of schedule in 1980 with the defense of his PhD thesis in the specialty “Mathematical Analysis”.

In 1980-2013б he worked at the N.G. Chebotarev Research Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics (RIMM) of Kazan Federal University, where he rose through the ranks from a junior research fellow to a professor and director of the research institute. He held the position of director from 1995 to 2013.

In 1991, he defended his doctoral dissertation in the specialty “Mechanics of liquids, gas and plasma”. He is a recognized authority in the field of mathematical modeling and inverse boundary value problems.

In 1998, he participated in the creation of the first independent private research company in the country dealing with ICT4D problems – the Institute of the Information Society. Since then, he has been an invariable member of the supreme body of the institute. He conducted a number of studies related to the development of the information society, the formation of digital scientific libraries, the markup of mathematical texts and search methods in them, and the development of electronic book publishing.

From 2012 to 2014, he was an advisor to the rector of KFU, in 2014-2016 he worked as a deputy director, head of the department, and then professor at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics (IMM) named after N.I. Lobachevsky KFU. Since 2017, he has been working as a professor at the Higher School of Information Technology and Intelligent Systems (HSITIS) of KFU.

The total number of scientific works of A.M. Elizarov is more than 500, including 8 monographs, 22 collective monographs, more than 250 scientific papers in leading Russian and foreign journals; he also has 7 certificates of registration of computer programs; wrote 4 textbooks. He spoke as an invited lecturer with plenary and sectional reports at many international and all-Russian conferences.

A.M. Elizarov has been and continues to be actively involved in teaching as a professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Informatics of Kazan Federal University; the Departments of Differential Equations, Aerohydromechanics, Computer Mathematics and Informatics at the N.I. Lobachevsky Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science of Kazan Federal University; the Department of Informatics at the Information and Library Faculty of Kazan University of Culture and Arts (KazGUKI); the Department of Software Engineering at the Higher School of ITIS of Kazan Federal University.

He has supervised 18 candidates of science, and was a scientific consultant for 2 doctoral dissertations. He was a member of a number of doctoral dissertation councils, and is currently the Chairman of the Dissertation Council of KFU in specialty 023.2. He has repeatedly acted as an opponent for doctoral and candidate dissertations.

A.M. Elizarov is one of the organizers (1996), deputy editor-in-chief, and since 2015 – editor-in-chief of the Lobachevskii Journal of Mathematics (published by Springer Publishing House since 2008); editor-in-chief of the journal Electronic Libraries, member of the editorial board of the scientific and analytical journal Information Society, member of the editorial boards of leading domestic and foreign journals.

He is a member of the Russian National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, the American Mathematical Society, the German Society of Mathematicians and Mechanics, and the International Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He supervised the creation and support of the Internet Center of Kazan State University (1998-2001).

In 1997-2005, he supervised the project “Creation of the N.I. Lobachevsky Mathematical Center for Conducting All-Russian Youth Scientific Schools and Conferences”, carried out within the framework of the relevant federal target program. He was the initiator of the publication of the “Proceedings of the N.I. Lobachevsky Mathematical Center” (more than 50 volumes have been published to date), and is the scientific editor of a significant part of them. In 1995-2001, he supervised the project to create the Volga region fragment of the data transmission network for science and education, carried out within the framework of the relevant federal target program.

In 2009, A.M. Elizarov became the director-organizer of the Kazan branch of the Interdepartmental Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

A. M. Elizarov was awarded the academic titles of senior research fellow (1982), associate professor (1984), professor (1996); the title “Honored Scientist of the Republic of Tatarstan” (2004); the titles of honorary professor of KazGUKI and honored professor of KFU; he was awarded the badge “Honored Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation” (2007). In 2014, he was awarded the gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation.

On October 7, 2022, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 713, for his achieved labor successes and many years of conscientious work, A. M. Elizarov was awarded the honorary title “Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation”.

We sincerely congratulate our friend and colleague Alexander Mikhailovich Elizarov on his glorious anniversary and sincerely wish him health, happiness, longevity and new achievements!

Please meet the third issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2024. The main theme of the issue is Life in digital: what’s new.

Information war and changing the old world order
Remote investment entrepreneurship
Business models of enterprises in digital economy
Difference between traditional and digital protectionism
Intellectual migration in Azerbaijan
Legal regulation of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles
Media activity of military universities
Machine translation based on multi-agent neurocognitive architectures
ICT for proactive and anticipatory management
Interoperability of information systems

In her address to readers “Open science as a global public good,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

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“Russians have an openness of spirit,” wrote philosopher and sociologist Nikolai Berdyaev, the author of the original concept of the philosophy of freedom, in his collection “The Fate of Russia” (1914-1917). And this is truly so. This is why Russia immediately supported the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

In the foreword to last year’s report “Open science outlook 1: status and trends around the world” Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay noted: “…… More than ever, we need science – science that is open and collaborative, and therefore effective. However, despite the potential of the open science model, it is far from widespread. We can and must go further. We must make scientific results, processes and methods accessible. We must democratize science. <…> We must bring about a cultural shift, to ensure that open science is no longer the exception, but the rule.”

Our editorial board and the Institute of the Information Society, where we have been working for 25 years, have always professed the principle of openness of scientific research. We publish articles in the journal completely free of charge for authors and, from 2020, also for readers. Since that time, we have been distributing our authors’ works under the terms of the open international license Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike 4.0 International; CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. This means that you can freely share (exchange) – copy and distribute journal materials on any medium and in any format; adapt (create derivative materials) – remix, modify, and create new things based on this material. In this case, the following simple rules must be observed: indicate authorship, do not use the material for commercial purposes, and when creating a derivative material, distribute it under the terms of the same license.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, citing analysis data from the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, notes that Russia’s contribution to the global number of publications indexed in the Scopus database doubled from 2010 to 2019, which allowed Russia to move to 7th place in the global ranking. But in 2022, due to the worsening geopolitical situation, the participation of Russian scientists in a number of international scientific projects was suspended. The number of publications in indexed scientific publications has noticeably decreased, and Russia’s share in the global flow of publications has fallen to 3%. Thus, before our eyes, politicking is becoming the cause of the destruction of scientific ties and causing irreparable damage to world science, torpedoing the free exchange of scientific ideas.

According to the Director-General of UNESCO, for open science to realize its full potential, it must become global public good. However, until the desire for “hegemony”, which has given rise to harmful discrimination against Russia and other countries defending their sovereignty, is not stopped, open science will remain only a beautiful metaphor. And although we are currently going through difficult times, we remain confident that collaboration between scientists around the world will not only continue, but will soon flourish. In the meantime, we are guided by the principle “Do what you must, and come what may.”

In February, the President approved an updated national strategy for the development of artificial intelligence until 2030. Its implementation will make it possible to obtain an effect from the introduction of this technology of up to 11.2 trillion rubles for the country’s economy.

On May 30, 2024, a strategic foresight session on fundamental research in the field of artificial intelligence was held at the Coordination Center of the Government of the Russian Federation. The session was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chernyshenko.

“Artificial intelligence is the driver of industries designed to ensure the development of the supply-side economy. At the same time, with the advent of large language models, we are increasingly focused on supporting basic science. In particular, we opened research centers in the field of AI and on their basis began to train scientists whom we will involve in adapting generative AI to the needs of industries,” noted D. Chernyshenko.

Now the task is to increase funding for fundamental and applied science in the field of AI to 5%, and for research to at least 15%. In addition, it is planned to select 6 research centers that will conduct applied research commissioned by industrial partners, as well as train scientific specialists.

Taking into account the results of the foresight, 11 areas of exploratory research were formed, including:

• machine learning architectures and algorithms,
• computing and data for AI,
• fundamental and generative models,
• human-AI interaction,
• applied research for science, education and social sphere.

Based on the results of the event, the Ministry of Education and Science, together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, was instructed to work out a schedule for introducing all necessary changes to the state scientific and technological progress program. The Ministry of Economic Development will provide methodological support for these activities.

Yuri Hohlov, Chairman of IIS Board of Directors, took part in the strategic session in his capacity of a member of the expert council on advanced research in the field of AI and a foresight participant.

Source: Russian Government web site

On May 18, 2024, at the site of the International Exhibition and Forum “Russia”, a number of Rosstandart Days events were held for a wide range of visitors, covering the main areas of the agency’s activities. One of them was a discussion dedicated to ensuring trust in artificial intelligence.

Representatives of leading organizations in the field of development and testing AI systems took part in the discussion: Moscow Department of Information Technologies, Mendeleev All-Russian Research Institute of Metrology, Federal Center for Applied Development of Artificial Intelligence, Institute of the Information Society (IIS), Scientific Research Center “Okhrana”, etc. Representatives of Rosstandart and its subordinate organizations were also present: Institute of Standardization, as well as Academy of Standardization, Metrology and Certification. Participants discussed approaches to testing AI systems in industry, urban management, emissions control, and education.

The discussion was moderated by Sergey Garbuk, Director of Scientific Projects at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Chairman of the Russian Standardization Committee No. 164 “Artificial Intelligence” (TC 164).

The director of the branch of the Mendeleev Institute of Metrology Roman Rodin, head of the department of standardization in the industrial sectors of Rosstandart Vyacheslav Tutaev, head of the strategy department for the implementation of artificial intelligence in the city government of Moscow Department of Information Daria Sharova and others answered questions from visitors.

In particular, the Chairman of Subcommittee 02 “Data”, IIS Chairman Yuri Hohlov reviewed the international landscape of AI standardization, paying special attention to the harmonization of national standards developed within the framework of TC 164 with ISO standards.

Andrey Chukarin, Deputy General Director of the Federal Center for Applied Development of Artificial Intelligence, noted the activities of the TK 164 working group “Artificial intelligence in industry” and reviewed approaches to the development of national standards, the methodology for assessing AI solutions.

During the dialogue with the participants, the main question of the discussion was highlighted: what components form a person’s trust in artificial intelligence.

Sources: Rosstandart, TC 164

May 17 is World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The purpose of this celebration is to raise awareness of the opportunities that the use of the Internet and information and communication technologies can bring to countries, as well as ways to bridge the digital divide. This day marks the anniversary of the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telecommunication Union.

Since 1969, World Telecommunication Day has been celebrated annually on 17 May to commemorate the founding of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. This day was established by the Plenipotentiary Conference held in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973.

In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society called on the UN General Assembly to declare 17 May as World Information Society Day to highlight the importance of ICTs and focus on the wide range of information society-related issues raised at the summit. In March 2006, the General Assembly adopted resolution 60/252, which established that World Information Society Day should be celebrated annually on 17 May.

In November 2006, the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Antalya, Turkey, decided to celebrate both events on 17 May as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The updated resolution 60/252 invites Member States and sector members to commemorate the day annually through national programmes.

In 2024, World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is celebrated under the theme “Digital Innovation for Sustainable Development”.