The Russian parliament is beginning to form a legal framework for autonomous AI agents and robotic platforms. The key issue on the agenda is the allocation of liability for failures of such systems and the protection of citizens from potential harm.

The new legislative initiatives were announced by Alexander Sidyakin, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Digital Development and Artificial Intelligence, during a conversation with journalists at the XII International BRICS Parliamentary Forum in India.

Three areas for new norms

The deputy identified three key blocks requiring separate regulation:

  • Artificial intelligence in the physical world — robotic platforms moving through streets and airspace;
  • The AI agents market — programs that make decisions independently, without human involvement;
  • Copyright for materials and data on which AI models are trained.

The first area will require not a single norm but a whole set of rules. Robots moving along roads or in the air are capable of causing harm to people's health — meaning it is necessary to determine in advance the mechanisms for insuring such risks and the entity bearing responsibility for the consequences.

AI agents and copyright

The situation with AI agents is similar: such programs act autonomously, and in the event of a failure the consequences could be serious. Sidyakin warned of possible "shocks of a global nature" and stressed the need to establish who is responsible for such incidents.

The third block concerns the rights to materials and data used by developers to train AI. The parliamentarian noted that a significant amount of work lies ahead and recalled the words of State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin that artificial intelligence is both a challenge and an opportunity.

BRICS AI Council and growing demand for the technology

Sidyakin built on an initiative previously raised by Volodin at the same forum: the State Duma speaker proposed creating an expert council of AI specialists from BRICS countries. Its task is to exchange successful legislative solutions among the parliaments of the association. Volodin also stated that a situation in which technology begins to control humanity is unacceptable and proposed enshrining protection against this risk in the laws not only of individual countries but also at the level of BRICS and the UN.

Demand for regulation is growing along with the spread of AI. According to a survey by the NAFI analytical center, 62% of working users from Russia use neural networks for most or almost all work tasks. Over the past six months, 73% have turned to AI more often, and 66% delegate more tasks to it than before. The most popular assistant is "Alisa AI," used by 80% of respondents; it is followed by ChatGPT, "GigaChat," DeepSeek and Gemini. At the same time, 87% work with several tools at once. The survey involved 1,600 people over the age of 18.

Cryptalist analysis: The formation of norms for autonomous AI agents is a natural stage in the market's evolution: as programs are increasingly granted the right to make decisions without humans, systemic risk grows, requiring a clear allocation of responsibility. For the crypto industry, this is a signal toward convergence of standards: agent protocols and on-chain automation will inevitably fall within the scope of regulatory attention, and projects with a transparent accountability model will gain a competitive advantage over anonymous solutions.