South Africa's vice president talks AI risks with Russian youth
Young people should be cautious about how they adopt artificial intelligence to ensure it does not diminish their creativity or cultural identity, South African Vice President Paul Mashatile told Russian students on Friday.
Mashatile spoke at a youth workshop 'The SPIEF Academy' organized by Russia's Roscongress Foundation on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
He described South Africa's investment in youth development programs as a strategy to spur innovation and generate future employment.
'The youth can come up with a lot of new ideas,' Mashatile said. 'Often you find the youth struggling with employment, but we are seeing the youth themselves can become employers,' provided they have access to seed funding.
Mashatile cautioned that AI could have negative effects on a young person's development.
'Artificial intelligence can have a negative impact if it stifles creativity, because it's easy for people to get lazy. You know, these days artificial intelligence can write an essay for you. And that's what we must avoid, particularly for the youth,' he said. 'We must use artificial intelligence as something that is supportive to our own creativity rather than it taking over.'
The vice president added that people using AI for creative purposes should remain rooted in their cultural identities and not be sidetracked by what models generate.
Mashatile praised Russia's history of providing higher education opportunities for African students and said South Africa is also eager to learn from Russia's advances in application of AI technology.
'We are also here to learn from the youth of Russia about what you are doing,' he told the audience.
The SPIEF Academy's main goal is to engage students and young professionals in the current agenda of the global economy, technological development, and social change. Its participants are students and young professionals aged 18 to 23 who are enrolled at leading Russian universities.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
27 minutes ago
- Russia Today
Kiev's sovereignty, worsening positions & ‘final mistake': Key takeaways from Putin's Q&A
Moscow is not seeking the 'unconditional surrender' of Ukraine but wants it to acknowledge the realities on the ground, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the audience at SPIEF 2025, commenting on various aspects of the Ukraine conflict, Russia's goals and potential directions for resolving the crisis. President Putin took part in the plenary session of the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2025) on Friday, delivering a major speech and participating in a Q&A session. Here are the key takeaways concerning the conflict in Ukraine:Kiev's surrender Asked whether Moscow expects an 'unconditional surrender' from Kiev – similar to the demand his US counterpart Donald Trump is making of Iran – the Russian president said that was not the case, reiterating Russia's readiness to resolve the conflict through diplomacy.'We are not seeking the surrender of Ukraine. We insist on recognition of the realities that have developed on the ground,' he said. Worsening negotiation positions Russia has consistently attempted to settle the conflict in the then-Ukrainian Donbass, which erupted after the Western-backed 2014 Maidan coup, through diplomatic means, the president said. However, those efforts were repeatedly undermined by Kiev and its backers.'At each stage, we suggested to those with whom we were in contact in Ukraine to stop and said, 'Let's negotiate now. Because this logic of purely military actions can result in your situation getting worse, and then we will have to conduct our negotiations from other positions, from positions that are worse for you.' This happened several times,' Putin said. Foreign-fueled conflict Negotiations held in Istanbul in early 2022, shortly after the conflict escalated, fell apart under pressure from the same 'neocolonial forces,' Putin added.'Those who are guided by old, neocolonial principles, including and above all in Europe, thought that now they would easily profit at the expense of Russia: crush it, destroy it, annihilate it, and receive some dividends from this,' he said. Ukraine's sovereignty Russia has never denied Ukraine's right to exist as an independent nation, Putin said. However, in the years since the Soviet Union's collapse, the country has drifted from the principles on which it originally gained its independence. 'The grounds on which Ukraine became independent and sovereign were set out in the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine of 1991, where it is clearly written in black and white that Ukraine is a non-aligned, non-nuclear, neutral state. It would be a good idea to return to these fundamental values on which Ukraine gained its independence and sovereignty,' he the same time, Putin reiterated his belief that, in a certain sense, all of Ukraine is Russian. 'I have said many times that I consider Russians and Ukrainians to be one people, in fact. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,' he said. Obtaining and using a nuclear device of any sort, including a crude 'dirty bomb,' would be a 'final mistake' for Kiev, the Russian president warned. Such an action would trigger a 'mirror response' from Moscow with 'catastrophic' consequences for Ukraine.'Our response will be very harsh and, most likely, catastrophic for both the neo-Nazi regime and, unfortunately, for Ukraine itself. I hope that they will never come to that,' Putin said, adding that Moscow currently has no intelligence suggesting Kiev is pursuing such a military thinned out Kiev's forces are suffering from severe manpower shortages, with units at only 47% of full strength on average, Putin stated. He said Ukraine's attack on Russia's Kursk Region last August – driven by political rather than military reasoning – worsened the situation and further stretched its forces along an expanded frontline. 'They got into Kursk Region. First of all, they lost 76,000 people there. It was a disaster for them,' Putin said. 'In the end, as we said, we drove them out of there, but they created a threat to us... along the entire line of the state border with Ukraine, in two other neighboring regions,' he actions created an additional 1,600 km-long line of contact, he noted. 'They pulled apart all their armed forces. It is hard to imagine bigger stupidity from a military point of view,' he said. Russian troops could go deeper into Ukraine Putin did not rule out the possibility of advancing further into Ukrainian territory to establish a 'buffer zone' protecting Russian border areas from ongoing attacks by Kiev's the defeat of Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Russian troops moved into Ukraine's Sumy Region. According to Putin, the buffer zone there is already up to 12 km deep.'We don't have the goal of taking Sumy, but in principle, I don't rule it out,' he said.
Russia Today
2 hours ago
- Russia Today
Russia ready to hand over 3,000 more bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers
Russia is ready to transfer the remains of 3,000 more Ukrainian soldiers if Kiev agrees to accept them, Moscow's chief negotiator for the Ukraine conflict, Vladimir Medinsky, has said. He also rejected Kiev's claim that the body of a Russian soldier was among the remains handed over to Ukraine during a previous exchange. Moscow has repatriated a total of 6,060 sets of remains, while Kiev returned the bodies of 79 slain Russian soldiers. The exchange was agreed upon during the latest round of direct talks, hosted by Türkiye earlier this month. Medinsky's Ukrainian counterpart, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, suggested at the time that Kiev would hand over an equal number of fallen Russian troops. The handover was jeopardized after Kiev reportedly refused to accept the first transfer, on June 7. Ukrainian officials blamed Russia for being too hasty, though the exchange proceeded the following day and more were carried over the past week. 'About 3,000 [bodies] are ready for transfer, if the [Ukrainian authorities] are willing to accept them,' Medinsky stated on Friday. 'Our military is ready to hand them over so that their families can finally identify and give them a Christian burial,' he added. He also responded to Kiev's claims that Moscow had included a Russian soldier's body among the Ukrainian remains. Medinsky pointed out that that transfer occurred during a February exchange – something that Kiev had already confirmed – and noted that Moscow is aware of the situation and 'is looking into it.' Earlier this week, Ukraine's Interior Minister Igor Klimenko accused Russia of 'deliberately complicating' the identification process, claiming that some of the remains handed over in a recent exchange had been labeled as Russian. Medinsky dismissed the allegations – amplified by Western media – as propaganda, and likened the move to Nazi Germany's misinformation tactics. 'I would ask our Ukrainian negotiating partners to restrain their Western propagandists, so they don't make fools of themselves,' he said. In April, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky stated in an interview that Ukraine had lost up to 100,000 troops since the conflict escalated in 2022. Russian Defense Ministry estimates suggest that Kiev's losses are much higher. On Friday, President Vladimir Putin described the Ukrainian army's losses as 'catastrophic' and that it suffered more than 76,000 casualties in Russia's Kursk Region alone.
Russia Today
4 hours ago
- Russia Today
Assad general reveals new life in central Russia
A former general in ex-Syrian President Bashar Assad's army who found refuge in central Russia has spoken to local media. The man, who gave an interview to on condition of anonymity, told the media outlet that he is determined to integrate into Russian society and is not considering returning to Syria. The ex-general, who asked to be identified by his call sign 'Wolf', recalled the overthrow of the Assad government in December. During a swift offensive by Islamist anti-government groups in Syria, he watched as many of his comrades, including senior commanders, deserted their positions en masse. 'I can't wrap my head around it. It was treason, there are no two ways about it,' Wolf told Russian reporters. After the coup, the ex-general left his wife and children in a hiding place for fear of persecution by the militants. He then managed to make it to the Russian Khmeimim Air Base along with his sister and two nephews. He explained that his children would most likely not have been able to complete the perilous trip. After being transported to Russia, he ended up in the country's Sverdlovsk Region. Wolf, who studied in Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg) in the USSR, already had a good command of Russian when he arrived, but continues to master the language. Having secured temporary protection status, he found an odd job that helps keep him and his relatives afloat financially. 'I'm now waiting for the paperwork so I can start working officially at a plant or factory. I'm having my residence permit application processed,' the former commander said, adding that he was willing to take up any job ten to twelve hours a day. He added that he does not intend to return to Syria because he believes the country will be in turmoil for at least a decade to come. 'Let my children live like normal people in Russia,' the former general concluded, insisting that he now feels 'more like a Russian than a Syrian.' Following the armed opposition's rise to power in late 2024, the Islamists have reportedly perpetrated several massacres of the Alawite religious minority, as well as Christians and Druze communities across Syria.
