Discursive Infrastructuring of AI in Russia: Yandex’s Sustainability Reporting
摘要
This chapter presents a study of the sustainability reporting of Yandex, a leading Russian tech company, to explore how AI infrastructures are discursively constructed in an authoritarian regime. Utilizing approaches from science and technology studies and infrastructure studies, the study reveals four main discourses constructing AI and infrastructures in Yandex’s sustainability reporting: AI as a tool for controlling nature, AI as a boundary object indicating generational and class gaps, leadership through sustainable infrastructure, and the security of infrastructure. The research demonstrates that these discourses stabilize AI and infrastructure along the ideas of digital sovereignty what resonates Russia’s agenda to establish technological and ideological sovereignty. Through these discourses AI-driven services are framed as empowering tools that enhance control over natural phenomena, while infrastructures for AI are imagined as an impregnable fortress that holds its ground under the onslaught of foes. The findings also highlight the apolitical stance of Yandex, which constructs AI along the lines of progress and modernity “on the ground” in the everyday practices of its customers and employees.