en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Russian State Duma has passed a bill extending the maximum validity period of the Experimental Legal Regime (ЭПР) in the field of digital innovation from three to five years, and removing the requirement that a legal obstacle must exist for establishing an ЭПР. The bill is primarily aimed at promoting the development of artificial intelligence technologies.

Currently, an ЭПР is only permitted when the overall regulation of digital and technological innovation relationships includes requirements, provisions, prohibitions, and restrictions, and compliance with these requirements would render innovation impossible or severely hindered (i.e., a legal obstacle exists). However, in practice, due to the broad and rapidly evolving nature of technological directions, a range of innovation areas generally lack normative legal regulation. For example, in the field of artificial intelligence, there are no legal documents governing its operation and implementation procedures. The explanatory note to the bill states that the application potential of AI is far greater, but developers have to operate under conditions of uncertainty and a lack of legal protection, limiting the widespread adoption of new technologies due to the risk of being deemed illegal.

The bill stipulates the removal of the requirement that a legal obstacle must exist for establishing an ЭПР, and extends the maximum validity period of the ЭПР from three to five years. Alexander Podmoskovny (Александр Подмосковный), Product Manager for Machine Learning and AI at Deckhouse JSC "Flant," noted that for AI, the key issue is that regulation often lags behind technological development, and in some areas, there are no rules yet, which is precisely where controlled experiments are needed. Removing the requirement for a legal obstacle eliminates this paradox, allowing AI solutions to be tested not only in areas with outdated restrictions but also in fields where the regulatory framework is still being formed.

Mikhail Shraibman (Михаил Шрайбман), General Director of LLC "Osmi-IT" (Osmi IT), believes the bill addresses a real problem: regulation does not always keep pace with AI development, and businesses need clear conditions to test new scenarios. However, such a structure also carries risks. If the requirement for a legal obstacle is removed, the ЭПР may cease to be a precise tool for complex innovations and become a universal way to circumvent routine regulation. Therefore, he is generally positive about the idea of expanding the ЭПР, but on the condition that there are clearer access criteria, controls, and public evaluation of results.

Dmitry Livshin (Дмитрий Лившин), General Director of LLC "Cyber Business Consulting," stated that extending the period from three to five years is based on practical considerations: for serious experiments involving data accumulation and transition to full regulation, three years is clearly insufficient. Allowing voluntary withdrawal from the ЭПР upon one's own application is a reasonable detail that was previously missing. On a practical level, the law will unfreeze projects stalled due to legal uncertainty, involving AI in healthcare beyond existing telemedicine models, AI agents in financial services, AI in public services, and practical AI with automated decision-making in the industrial sector.

Dmitry Trunov (Дмитрий Трунов), Director of Government Relations at GC "UltimaTec," pointed out that the state's gradual shift toward controlled experiments is an important signal for AI development. If the ЭПР can be initiated not only for identified legal obstacles, the market will be able to test models, services, and data exchange in real environments more quickly. This is particularly important for industrial AI, autonomous systems, and smart logistics, where technology develops faster than regulation. The five-year period makes such projects more feasible, but results will only be achieved if flexibility is combined with requirements for security, data, and liability.

Igor Bederov (Игорь Бедеров), Chairman of the Committee for Combating Technical Violations under the Russian National Security Council, summarized that the main regulatory system was established in an era when AI was more like science fiction than engineering reality. The key innovation of the bill—removing the requirement that a legal obstacle must exist for establishing an ЭПР—is assessed as a paradigm shift in the legislators' approach.

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