The return of utopia to power: The turning point of Putin’s regime

On the Valdai assembly, Putin drew consideration when he stated: “The prevailing mannequin of capitalism is outdated”. Of all of the speeches he made, this was the one comment that alluded to the creeping revolution he’s within the means of selling in Russia.

Till the mid-2010s, Putin, consumed by his nostalgia for the USSR, was pursuing just one dream: to revive the empire rebuilt by Stalin, by iron and hearth if essential. However from 2017 he embraced a brand new mission, much more thrilling: to rebuild a USSR that works, a USSR 2 indestructible, freed from the vulnerabilities that led to the autumn of the communist regime. The invention of the chances of synthetic intelligence led him to deal with this historic process, impressed by the Chinese language instance: “The Communist Occasion has retained its management function, the market establishments nonetheless perform and work successfully.” On September 1, 2017 the Russian president stated, “Synthetic intelligence will not be solely the way forward for Russia, it’s the way forward for all mankind. […] Whoever turns into the chief on this area would be the grasp of the world.” Lenin used to say that the 2 pillars of Bolshevism had been stock and management. Digitalization will give new life to this long-forgotten Bolshevik slogan.

How did the Kremlin management come to see synthetic intelligence as a common panacea?

All of it begins with the widespread use of surveillance cameras alongside street networks from 2015. Income from fines turns into a deliberate income merchandise within the state price range. “The cameras are positioned primarily to gather extra money”, Vyacheslav Lyssakov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma’s constitutional committee, instructed Gazeta.ru. The areas plan the income a part of the price range by anticipating the fines collected via the cameras: they set the quantities to be levied on offenders. The cameras are sometimes put in in locations that don’t have anything to do with street security. The set up of those profitable cameras is entrusted to personal people for exploitation, below the pretext that there’s not sufficient cash within the price range to put in video cameras recording site visitors violations; in actual fact, they’re the golden goose. Therefore the choice to draw personal traders. This technique has been adopted in most areas. On October 3, 2017, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov stated, “The introduction of the digital financial system in Russia will considerably improve the gathering of fines from the inhabitants. With the assistance of digital applied sciences, will probably be extra handy to punish site visitors violators — drivers and pedestrians.”

The FacePay system within the Moscow metro // mos.ru.

Thus, it’s the elevated prospects of predation that first attracted the eye of Putin’s regime to the digital. However quickly the lads of the Kremlin realized that synthetic intelligence has an much more invaluable benefit of their eyes: the potential for whole police management of the inhabitants. On June 12, 2017, surveillance cameras with computerized facial recognition had been formally used for the primary time, throughout an illustration on Nationwide Day, which Alexei Navalny had known as for. As a part of an formidable program, the town has put in almost 190,000 surveillance cameras, one at every constructing entrance, on the streets and on public transport. Since January 2020, all cameras are linked to the automated facial recognition system NtechLab. […] There aren’t any authorized restrictions on the usage of this expertise in Russia. It’s price noting that those that participated within the January 2021 Moscow protests had been usually arrested solely after the FSB has completed processing the info supplied by the system. As well as, the Yarovaya legislation obliges operators to retain, from July 1, 2018, the site visitors of messaging, social networks and messaging providers (audio recordings of calls, the content material of messages and different communications of customers) for as much as six months. Regulation enforcement businesses can request this knowledge below the pretext of combating terrorism.

In 2018 the federal government of the Russian Federation introduced its intention to launch a program for the event of the digital financial system. A fund price 100 billion rubles was deliberate for this goal.

In 2019, new steps are taken. Putin approves an formidable program for the event of synthetic intelligence till 2030: “Synthetic intelligence mechanisms present quick, real-time, and optimum decision-making based mostly on the evaluation of gigantic quantities of data, which presents monumental benefits when it comes to high quality and effectivity […] Whoever acquires the monopoly of synthetic intelligence will turn out to be the grasp of the world”, the Russian president repeats in Could 2019. The selection of Mishustin to switch Medvedev as head of presidency in January 2020 is revealing. From March 2004 to December 2006, Mishustin headed the Federal Company for the Actual Property Cadastre (Rosnedvizhimost), the place he initiated main reforms by transferring all obtainable actual property documentation into digital kind. Inside two years, Rosnedvizhimost carried out a whole cadastral analysis of land within the Russian Federation, which made it potential to introduce a property tax based mostly on cadastral worth from 2006. However President Putin was much more appreciative of the outcomes of Mishustin’s efforts when he was appointed head of the tax administration and succeeded in “laundering” a lot of the Russian enterprise that had beforehand escaped taxation. It was below the management of Mishustin that in 2019 the Federal Tax Service accomplished its transition to the brand new automated info system (AIS) “Tax-3”. In November 2019 Mishustin said with satisfaction, “The formidable process of centralizing disparate tax knowledge in a single system and making a technological foundation for administering within the years to come back has been achieved”. The Monetary Instances acknowledged that “Russia is certainly one of many world leaders in tax digitization”. In an interview revealed by Kommersant, Mishustin, then head of the Federal Tax Service, spoke in regards to the modern applied sciences of this Service, the implications of digitization of the state sector of the financial system and society, which in Russia is properly forward of the remainder of the world. Mishustin predicted “the longer term robotization not solely of labor manufacturing processes, but in addition of mental work”: “Synthetic intelligence will oust essentially the most educated and lively individuals who have excessive expectations for his or her lifestyle”: that is the dream of the Russian authorities, which needs efficiency with out tolerating the liberty of thoughts that’s important for true progress. “An important asset of the digital world is knowledge. Whoever collects and processes extra of this knowledge, will get extra added worth.” Thus digitization and management are the declared aims of the brand new Prime Minister. As quickly as he took workplace, he advocated conducting a list of the earnings of pensioners suspected of hiding massive quantities of income from the state.

Below the Mishoustin authorities, the method of whole digitization is accelerating. The legislation “On a single federal register of data containing info on the inhabitants of the Russian Federation” adopted by the State Duma and authorized by the Federation Council got here into pressure in June 2020. The thought is to create a database that can comprise info on Russian residents and foreigners on the territory of Russia. The information will likely be collected from the knowledge programs of state authorities and extra-budgetary state funds. The state will gather about 30 various kinds of details about residents, together with training stage, marital standing, and so on. In December 2020 the Russian president stated that within the subsequent decade the digital transformation of your entire nation needs to be carried out, “to introduce in every single place the applied sciences of synthetic intelligence, megadata evaluation”. He recalled that Russia in the midst of its historical past has carried out large-scale technological advances, particularly, within the late 19^th – early 20^th century, it constructed railroads at an unprecedented price, after which within the final century it achieved electrification. “However our plans for the widespread introduction of synthetic intelligence, digital transformation don’t have any analogues when it comes to the depth of change in all areas. They may actually have an effect on each particular person, each household, each department of the financial system and social sphere, each group and each stage of presidency, your entire system of presidency.”

On July 1, 2020, a legislation introducing a particular authorized regime in Moscow got here into pressure, geared toward transferring to synthetic intelligence the correct to regulate life within the metropolis. The Moscow Design revealed on this event (after which withdrawn from circulation because of scandal) emphasised that it was based mostly on the rules of transhumanism to “enhance an individual’s psychological and bodily talents and destroy features of human existence which might be thought of undesirable: struggling, growing older, illness”. In October, the Moscow Metro started introducing Face Pay, which lets you pay in your rides “by photograph” (it’s essential to first set up the app in your smartphone and add your photograph by way of it to a unified knowledge storage heart — ETSHD — at Moscow Metropolis Corridor). Moscow Metropolis Corridor has introduced one other innovation: surveillance cameras within the capital’s procuring malls are built-in into the identical ETSHD. The purpose is to trace masks violators amongst their guests. The mall administration will likely be punished for his or her habits, however not solely. Those that have already registered their physiognomy within the ETSHD databases (together with to pay for journey) can even be robotically fined. In October 2021 the Federal Service of Judicial Officers introduced its determination to spend 11.5 billion rubles on the event of digital applied sciences by 2023. Its objective is to attach synthetic intelligence to the seek for debtors and the gathering of details about them.

The facial recognition system utilized by the Russian police // digital.ac.gov.ru.

Additionally in October 2021, the Prime Minister authorized a plan for the digital transformation of public administration, which includes the revival of state planning, however at a brand new technological stage. This can be a return to an improved Gosplan (Gosplan, the Soviet central planning physique was abolished even earlier than the collapse of the USSR, in Could 1991) based mostly on a unified automated system of information assortment and evaluation of key socio-economic parameters for real-time evaluation. That is what central planning within the USSR was attempting to realize. Putin’s technocrats think about that the Gosplan failed due to an absence of computing energy. Mishustin’s authorities is resurrecting the Gosplan, counting on digital applied sciences and synthetic intelligence: the prime minister has ordered key price range departments to implement the transition from disparate departmental digital platforms to a single federal platform, i.e. the mixing and elimination of departmental digital fragmentation. The widespread digital platform might want to function in an automatic, self-adjusting, self-correcting mode. The purpose is to “make sure the real-time correlation of the calls for and desires of the nation’s financial brokers to cut back prices and improve manufacturing effectivity”. This, in line with officers, “will improve the buying energy of residents.” A decree of the Authorities of the Russian Federation on updating the factors for assessing the effectiveness of governors, signed by the Prime Minister, states that the extent of “digital maturity” of the areas will turn out to be one of many instruments for assessing regional officers.

The following step will likely be to outroot “out of date capitalism”. The targets would be the two bastions of “systemic liberals” (built-in into the ability system) in Russia, the Ministry of Finance and the Financial institution of Russia. One can anticipate a “dekulakization” of the brand new wealthy below the guise of selling “nationwide initiatives” entrusted to siloviki near the Kremlin. For a while now, the Mishutin authorities has been quietly reforming liberal monetary coverage with out formally altering the executive and political guidelines. The Ministry of Finance is step by step being diminished to mere accounting features. Russia’s new wealthy have caught the wind: Rubliovka, that ultra-chic Moscow suburb the place oligarchs have constructed luxurious palaces, is now abandoned. Everybody has bought up and emigrated overseas. Actual property brokers have given up discovering patrons for the deserted mansions. Even with a 70% low cost on their worth, they aren’t discovering takers. Within the third quarter of 2021, a document $33.9 billion was transferred overseas. As well as, the ANO “Nationwide Priorities” firm, which is answerable for the propaganda of nationwide initiatives, developed in October 2021 an info marketing campaign to extend public confidence in synthetic intelligence, which is at present related within the minds of individuals with surveillance and armaments. The principle goal of the marketing campaign is to kind a constructive picture of synthetic intelligence in society, whereas there’s increasingly more speak of “digital gulag”. The purpose is to counter the Russian inhabitants’s mistrust of synthetic intelligence, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic and the restrictions related to the struggle in opposition to Covid.19

The September 2021 elections confirmed present apprehensions by displaying that digital voting supplied prospects of large falsification that the regime had not beforehand been capable of dream of.

That is how the ambiguous futuristic article by Vladislav Surkov, one of many ideologists of the Putin regime (the inventor of the idea of “sovereign democracy”), revealed on October 11, entitled “Abandoned Democracy and Different Political Wonders of 2121”, turns into clear. Surkov asserts that parliamentary illustration is now not essential as a result of the needs of the inhabitants could be communicated immediately by way of the Web. Briefly, political illustration have to be thrown away and changed by algorithms. Solely laptop scientists and siloviki will stay on the helm, operating the giants of synthetic intelligence behind the scenes. “The digitization and robotization of the political system will consequence within the creation of a high-tech state and a democracy with out males […] by which the hierarchy of machines and algorithms will pursue objectives past the comprehension of the individuals who serve it.”

It’s simple to grasp why Putin and the Kremlin’s group of siloviki are obsessed with synthetic intelligence: the prospect of whole management over the inhabitants, the mirage of a definitive liquidation of freedom and even of politics, is sufficient to seduce our Chekists, nonetheless traumatized by the autumn of the USSR. To not point out the infinite prospects of blackmail and nuisance overseas: therefore Putin’s motto that the one who masters synthetic intelligence can even be the grasp of the world. The big cyber assault of July 3, 2021 in the USA was sufficient to pressure President Biden to vary his thoughts on the 2 factors that mattered to Moscow: the abandonment of sanctions in opposition to Nordstream and the rallying to the disastrous Minsk agreements within the Russian model.

We are able to see that the Kremlin’s siloviki clan has nothing to envy to the Western advocates of essentially the most excessive transhumanism. In his Valdai speech, Putin hypocritically feigned concern in regards to the potential abuses of synthetic intelligence: “The technological revolution, the spectacular achievements within the area of synthetic intelligence, electronics, communications, genetics, bioengineering, drugs open up large alternatives, however in addition they elevate philosophical, ethical, and religious questions within the utilized sense, which till just lately had been posed solely by science and fiction writers. What is going to occur when expertise surpasses man within the capability to suppose? The place is the restrict of intervention within the human physique, after which an individual ceases to be himself and is reworked into one other entity?” The reply is easy, in line with him: one should wrest these applied sciences from the multinationals and provides management to the states. The discourse on “average conservatism” and the protection of “conventional values” is a smokescreen, behind which Putin and his cronies search to construct a huge totalitarian gadget able to eradicating from human weaknesses the machine of energy they’ve been setting up for the final 20 years.

Ought to we fear about this loopy ambition aggravated by senility? Let’s keep in mind that already in 1986, when Gorbachev was endlessly babbling on “scientific-technical progress” , there have been specialists (together with Western ones) who imagined that the Gosplan could be efficient as soon as it had computer systems. Actuality has a thousand methods to take again its rights on the digital. Pure intelligence will at all times be extra inventive than synthetic intelligence. The digital mesh deployed by the Putin system doesn’t stop an impression of abrasion as we speak, together with of the “vertical of energy”. The blogger El Murid, a former ultra-patriot who defected to the opposition, describes the impression of Covid-19 in Russia as follows: “Putin, together with his medical cowardice, dodging his obligations by all means and hiding in basements and cellars, has already performed extra for the disintegration of the nation than any exterior enemy. The regionalization of the nation, the formation of clusters inside the political class have turn out to be commonplace. The truth that governors aren’t but taking full benefit of the alternatives they now have is a short lived phenomenon. Equally, the empowerment of company buildings and their rising capability for initiative at the moment are a given. The regime because it was two years in the past is ceasing to exist, its buildings are unraveling like rotting tissue.”