Inflation from the car

Can artificial intelligence stop prices in Russia

Inflation in Russia wants to be considered with the help of artificial intelligence. Many will say to this: “No matter how you count, with or without artificial intelligence, and we feel the price of prices in our own skin.”

So it is, but still the news that Rosstat wants to use artificial intelligence to calculate inflation. And not only because statistics hope to spend 460 million rubles on it. That is how many funds, according to Rosstat, are necessary to implement the relevant project under the program “Digital Economy”.

And what should these considerable funds go? The fact is that today, registrar employees actually manually collect the information necessary for calculating the consumer price index (IPC)-an indicator characterizing or reducing prices. For this, Rosstat has a whole system of collecting and processing information. It is impossible to track the movement of prices and tariffs for all goods sold in the country and sold services (in any case, this was impossible before the era of digitalization). Therefore, it is necessary:

• determine the settlements in which the registration of prices and tariffs for goods and services is carried out;

• select the basic organizations of trade and the services of services in which prices and tariffs for goods and services are registered;

• Determine the goods/representative services, that is, those of them, prices (tariffs) for which will be registered;

• Register prices and tariffs, etc.

In general, work on calculating the consumer price index is very time -consuming. And almost manual: for registering prices, Rosstat employees use smartphones with special software.

However, with the introduction of online cash desks and product labeling systems using bar and QR codes, new opportunities for collecting data on prices and consumer activity have appeared. Naturally, the question arose of using these capabilities to calculate inflation.

But there is a problem: codification of goods from different sellers is different. And just to solve this problem and is called artificial intelligence. Is the requested price adequate for this - 460 million rubles is a big question.

And in general: here really needs artificial intelligence or enough technologies for processing a huge array of data? If you manage to implement the relevant technologies, the advantages will be obvious.

Firstly, much more complete information will be used to calculate inflation (in fact, all possible). This means that the chances that the final calculation indicator - the consumer price index - will be more reliable, increase.

Secondly, with this calculation of inflation, the influence of the human factor is minimized. Imagine: registrar employees will now not bypass outlets and fix prices. And what prevents them from the current system simply draw the registered prices? They pay a little money, but then you still need to go somewhere ...

So, soon we will have the most reliable data by the same inflation? Oh, I'm not sure.

The main problem of modern Russian statistics is still not technical. If there is a clear desire on the part of the authorities, let’s say in a simple way, to embellish reality, then no digitalization, no artificial intelligence will help reliable statistics. In this regard, we recall what big claims have accumulated in recent years to Rosstat data on real disposable income of the population, for industrial production index, etc.

Moreover, to some extent, risks regarding the reliability of data may even increase.

Come on to double -check the numbers that will give out “on the mountain” artificial intelligence.

And with the previous system it was extremely difficult, but with the future and even more so. It turns out that there may be problems with control. Then there is no choice but to work with the motivation of the authorities, so that they have no desire to correct the numbers.

Prices in July 2020, according to Rosstat, compared with December 2019 rose by 3%. Moreover, it is interesting that the Pandemia of Coronavirus laid its mark on how prices for different products grew. During the same period, the most prices increased by sugar-sand-by 20.1%, by cereals and legumes-by 17.8%, for pasta-by 8.6%.

Well, yes, the people were stuck in connection with the quarantine. True, fruit and vegetable products also grew strongly in price - by 19.2%. But these are not perishable products, although not pasta, of course. It’s somehow strange that in July, fruits and vegetables were much more expensive than in December. Maybe, really, let artificial intelligence try to calculate inflation.