Tom Christensen, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway, Member of Norwegian Academy of Sciences, expressed his concerns in several regards on December 19 when addressing the Closing Ceremony of the 2024 Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints. 

“There are a lot of challenges. The first Challenge is that we don't know how best to organize urban governments and the digital part of it. And there are, in fact, a long way from the top of the government down to people."

" We can then ask, do we really achieve so much more in doing this much more digital and elegant? we can also post the question, do people that are really interested in the process like this? Or are they interested in the results? Some studies showed quite clearly that people are more interested in the result. Do they really get more of a certain type of service? They are not that preoccupied with the process as such-it is very shiny and streamline.”

“Historically, we have always said that the process is the most important characteristic of having organizations. We also have a lot of concerns related to, for example, data privacy, which is not only a public problem, but also a private problem. We have problems with the coupling of different data archives. They are biased, and we have problems with transparency.”

When addressing algorithm bias, he said that "We see a lot of biases in the way that if people have few resources, they are not able to use the digital solutions. The digital solution is adding to biases in the society and is adding to social inequality. They are also inside the way they are making new tools. There is discrimination. For example, there is much algorithm basically written by men who are discriminating women. That’s very much of a concern.”

To find solutions to these problems, he said, "We must get people to participate much more in urban governance. When I was young, we talk to each other. Basically, that's gone. If you travel in the metro in Beijing, everyone is looking at the phone or listening to something. When you walk around in the cities, very few talk to each other. People don't interact much more. That's the problem because we can't have a big urban development without creating a human-leading places. There is also optimistic part of this. There are certain big cities in China who are experimenting with decentralized use of money. For example, in a neighborhood you can gather people in the committee and decide how to use a public space. The more advanced we are in digital solution, the more we should think about, how we can make a society where people really talk to each other and are together in communities.”