All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference "Opportunities and Threats of the Digital Society"

Senior Research Fellow Maria Yudina and Research Assistant Agnes Beach of the International Laboratory for Digital Transformation in Public Administration (HSE University) prepared a report for the VIII conference "Opportunities and Threats of the Digital Society". The event was organized by the P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, and the Russian Association of Political Science. 

The plenary session was devoted not only to the general theme of the conference, but also to anniversaries: 2025 marked the 50th anniversary of the Department of Socio-Political Theories and the 35th anniversary of the Faculty of Socio-Political Sciences of YarSU named after P.G. Demidov. From scientific reports of the plenary session the presentation by O.V. Popova from St. Petersburg State University on the topic "Social rating strategy: the long road to justice or to the "digital hell" should be mentioned. The speaker highlighted the key risks and threats of social rating at the state level. According to O.V. Popova, the so called "social credit" of the Republic of China is currently not institutionalized. Chinese residents are surprised to learn about this social experiment from foreign media, since the system is used only in some regions. O.V. Popova critically assessed the Russian social scoring platform "WE", developed by the Russian State Social University, but generally came to the conclusion that there is a high probability of introducing a social rating system in Russia. O.G. Filatova presented the results of a study by ITMO University, speaking on the topic "Interaction between government and society in the context of the development of ecosystems of digital services: assessment of social effectiveness".

The report "Digital Rating of States", prepared by M.A. Yudina and A.K. Beach, was presented at the face-to-face session "Digital Governance and Social rating: new forms of interaction between government and society". The P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University held this session with the support of the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 24-28-00728 "Political consequences of social rating of citizens". M.A. Yudina and A.K. Beach reported on the problems of the complexity of assessing and rating the effectiveness of the digital transformation of public administration in different countries of the world. The authors proposed to their colleagues a new index of digital transformation of public administration in 5 key areas: Technology, Inclusion, Trust, Access, Law (technology, inclusion, trust, access, and legislation). The P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University researchers E.A. Isaev and S.A.Novozhilov have prepared a report "Social rating as a mechanism for managing citizens in a digital society (using the example of China)". According to E.A. Isaeva, who presented the report, the current mechanism is not balanced: it is much easier to fall in the ranking than to rise. E.A. Lukicheva from Kuban University spoke on the topic: "The system of political communications of the federal ministries of modern Russia in social media: a comparative perspective". She noted the active use of bots by officials in her region. K.A. Neverov from St. Petersburg State University shared an analysis of the experience of digital transformation of public administration in Brazil. Answering questions from the audience, K.A. Neverov noted that although this country is in many aspects the leader of Latin America in the field of digital transformation, it could achieve great results by adopting the Russian experience.

The plenary session on April 3, the first day of the conference, and the round table "Political Science and Sociology: the Digital Future" on April 4 were held synchronously, face-to-face with remote broadcasting. The moderator of the round table was Senator of the Russian Federation, member of the Federation Council Committee on Science, Education and Culture, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor A.I. Rusakov. O.A. Gabraelian spoke on the topic "The digital future of political Science and sociology: two examples – an explanation on fingers". He shared with the participants of the round table the experience of researching the "hero image" in digital media, noted the need to teach students at the "University 4.0" level and the importance of teamwork in modern scientific research. Head of the Center for AI and Digital Economics at the P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University V.V. Khryashchev made a presentation with the unusual title "If Max Weber Had Used Phyton: AI in Hands of a Sociologist." According to V.V. Khryashchev, if M. Weber were in the modern world, he would highly appreciate the possibilities of AI, but would warn against "digital blindness" and excessive techno-optimism. Chairman of the Council of Student’s Research Work at the P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University V.V. Zagrebin spoke on the topic "Sociology as a profession of the future in a digital society". Answering a question from M.A. Yudina (HSE University), he spoke about the experience of using AI to analyze in-demand vacancies in Moscow and the successful experience of applying the results obtained to update curricula at the P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University. The round table discussion ended with a statement of the complexity of the tasks of digital transformation and the need to solve them together, with interdisciplinary scientific and educational teams.