Russian tech companies Yandex and VKontakte are being grilled by government officials for making their homegrown artificial intelligence chatbots avoid subjects related to the invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant business dailyreported Tuesday.Presidential Human Rights Council chief Valery Fadeyev said he was surprised to learn that YandexsAlisa and VKontaktes Marusia refuse to answer when asked about the legal status of eastern Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the early 2022 massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha.[OpenAIs] ChatGPT has answers.
I thought it would be harsh [Western] propaganda.
But no its one sides opinion and the opposite side.
Theres a discussion.
Its vague, but theres an answer, Fadeyev was quoted as saying at a forum.Why do our new tools hesitate to answer? he asked.Yandexs head of AI development, Alexander Kraynov, hinted that producing an answer deemed wrong by the Kremlin carried the risk of criminal prosecution amid wartime censorship and a crackdown on freedoms.Avoiding the answer is the best thing we can do for now because if we had answered badly, we would have most likely been banned altogether, Kommersant quoted Kraynov as saying at the event.Human Rights Council member Igor Ashmanov confronted Kraynov for allowing Russian children to face ideological ambiguity.Theres no sense in telling a child You know, one source says the Russians killed everyone in Bucha, while another says its an American and Ukrainian fake.
The child should have one answer, Ashmanov said.
Its the same with history even talking to a teenager, you cant give them many points of view.It was not immediately clear whether a VKontakte representative also took part in the discussion on protecting rights and freedoms in a digital age.Dmitry Medvedev, Russias former president and current deputy chairman of Russias Security Council,accused Yandexs chatbot of being a terrible coward earlier in May when it dodged questions about United States laws allowing the seizure of Russian assets, as well as about statutes of the Ukrainian nationalistStepan Bandera.