Moscow Polytech Expert Shares View on AI’s Role in Ensuring Sovereignty at CIS Economic Forum

The CIS International Economic Forum took place on April 3 at the Moscow International Trade Center. One of the key topics on the agenda was the role of artificial intelligence in ensuring sovereignty. Nazir Magsi, a lecturer at the Department of Management at Moscow Polytech, shared his perspective on the issue.

According to the expert, two sessions at the forum occupied a central place in the overall program. The first was titled “Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive and Digital Technologies in Service of Sovereignty: New Tools for Digital Independence,” and the second was “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies: A New Path to Building Sustainable Sovereignty.”

As Nazir Magsi noted, raising such topics on such a high‑profile international stage is particularly significant today. The modern information and technology landscape has become not just an environment for data exchange but also a space where decisions, behavioral models, educational practices, and even frameworks of thought are shaped. Under these conditions, issues of digital independence, cognitive resilience, and technological sovereignty extend far beyond the technical agenda and become part of states’ strategic development.

“It is no longer enough to view artificial intelligence solely as a tool for improving efficiency. It is becoming increasingly clear that AI affects not only information processing but also the very structure of human activity, decision‑making, and knowledge formation. That is why discussing its role in the context of sovereignty is not just timely but strategically necessary,” Nazir Magsi emphasized.

The expert also noted that AI’s impact on the cognitive sphere, particularly in education, takes at least three forms.

First, there is a redistribution of cognitive load, where part of the intellectual effort shifts fr om the person to the technological system.

Second, there is the substitution of certain cognitive processes, wh ere technology begins to perform functions that previously supported the development and application of one’s own knowledge, analytical skills, and interpretation abilities.

Third, AI creates new cognitive possibilities and practices that were previously impossible or largely inaccessible without digital tools.

This approach raises a fundamentally important question: when considering cognitive sovereignty, one must first understand not just the availability of a technology but also the scope and depth of its influence. The key task is to identify what exactly the technology does: does it assist the person, redistribute the workload, replace human functions, or create entirely new mechanisms of thought and interaction? Without such distinctions, it is impossible to develop either an adequate education policy or sustainable approaches to ensuring digital and cognitive independence.

“These forum sessions created a space for discussing not only technological capabilities but also the fundamental principles on which state development should be built in an era of rapid digital transformation. The issue is the need to develop approaches in which technology strengthens, rather than erodes, the agency of society and the state,” commented Nazir Magsi. “Discussing artificial intelligence, cognitive and digital technologies through the lens of sovereignty is a step toward a more mature understanding of the future. In that future, technological progress must go hand in hand with the ability to independently shape knowledge, make decisions, set one’s own development path, and preserve one’s own value and meaning system as the foundation of sustainable sovereign development.”