Threat or hope: how we began to perceive technology after the pandemic

Moscow State University, commissioned by RVC, conducted a study of how Russians perceived new technologies during a pandemic. One of the authors of the study is Alexander Auzan, Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. The presentation of the report took place within the framework of the online conference "Open Innovations":

Auzan notes that, as in any crisis, now we are facing the risk of increasing the influence of the state on private spheres of life - state capitalism. True, such a system is familiar to us: over the past 6-7 years in Russia, the largest banks and backbone enterprises have become fully or partially state-owned. But there are other models in the world, from digital totalitarianism in China to global ecosystems involving several countries.

During the "coronacrisis" 43% of Russians began to relate to technology better:

How the attitude towards technology has changed (Photo: RVC)

50% are more positive about drones and drone delivery. 24% began to trust more in telemedicine, 20% - in devices that track medical indicators. 23% have improved their attitude to distance learning.

The average cyber security consultant salary which you make is around $85,427 per year and more depending on experiences in the United States.

But only 8% trust diagnostics with the help of AI, while the use of neuroimplants (like Neuralink from Elon Musk), on the contrary, is treated worse than two years ago. The older the respondent, the more he trusts the domestic vaccine, and not the foreign one.

However, the main fears are not even related to technology, but to the pandemic itself. She ruined plans and confidence in stability. As a result, many stopped planning more than three years ahead:

Such an atmosphere is detrimental to any innovation, so venture capital investments were also under threat.

Finally, relations with the state have changed in terms of digital technologies and services. 76% of respondents do not see threats in face recognition systems if they are used to solve crimes. 66% allow the collection of personal data by the state so that it can track all contacts of those infected with the coronavirus. Opinions were roughly halved on collecting data for digital gaps.

Only 30% of Russians believe that their data is protected. Here, too, there is a close connection with age and education: the younger and more educated the respondents, the more confident they are in the security of their data. 55% of respondents believe that they should have the right to choose which data to provide access to the state, and which - not.

This suggests that there has been a shift in Russia within the framework of Keynes's so-called "impossible trilemma" - an unattainable balance between freedom, government efficiency and justice for all. Now society has, as it were, entered into a new social contract with the state: efficiency has become more important than freedom.