Russian President Vladimir Putin has met an AI-equipped robot in Moscow.
Vladimir Putin has been forced to watch an AI-powered humanoid dance in front of him at an exhibition.
The robot, which introduced itself as Green, told the Russian President it wanted to “show off” its party moves before launching into the routine as a pop song played.
“I am thefirst Russian humanoid robot equipped with embedded artificial intelligence,” Green said during the strange encounter broadcast on state TV. “This means I am not just a program on a screen but a physical embodiment of the technology.”
During the dance, one of Putin’s bodyguards inserted himself between the robot and the Russian leader to ensure it did not get too close to him.
“Very beautiful,” the Kremlin leader said afterwards, with an expressionless face. “Thank you.”
The performance was staged at an AI conference hosted by Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, which has increasingly branched into technology.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Green. Photo / Getty Images
The clip came days after AIDOL, which was described as Russia’s first anthropomorphic robot, fell just seconds into its debut appearance at a technology event.
The sorry display prompted concerns about Russia’s domestic robotics development, which has been crippled by Western sanctions on supply chains, structural economic issues and a brain drain of top innovators since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Later at the Moscow exhibition, Putin called for a national taskforce to advance the nation’s work on home-grown generative AI models, which he said were vital to preserving “national sovereignty”.
He was offered the chance to test one of Sberbank’s new smart cash machines, which not only dispense cash but can give customers a health reading using pulse rate and blood pressure, but he declined.
“I just had my annual check-up,” he said. “Thank God, everything is fine.”
Putin is historically known to be opposed to new technology and this week the Kremlin confirmed that the 73-year-old does not use AI but admitted that officials who work for him do.
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