If you've ever wondered whether Putin has an AI sidekick whispering in his ear while he runs Russia, wonder no more, or at least, according to the Kremlin. Officials confirmed this week that Putin himself doesn't actually tinker with AI tools. Well... actually, he leaves the heavy AI lifting to the staff working for him.
During his annual Q&A session with citizens (via Reuters), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that AI was helping sort through the deluge of questions. So while Putin isn't personally chatting with chatbots or asking an algorithm to draft his speeches, his team definitely is, and probably saving him a ton of time.
Meanwhile, Putin is still keeping an eye on the AI frontier. Yesterday, he called for a national task force to develop homegrown generative AI models, framing it as a key move to protect "Russian sovereignty." "For Russia, it is a matter of national, technological and value-based sovereignty," he said at AI Journey, Russia's flagship AI event.
And to make sure he doesn't miss the party, a dancing AI robot even performed for him at a tech exhibition. So there you have it: Putin isn't personally logging into AI, but the machines are still doing some of the heavy lifting (and even some dancing) behind the scenes. But for the dancing you will have to check out the following link. Go!