Halfdan Lynge on state-citizen relations when agents become the front end of government

Alessandro Oppo: Welcome to another episode of the Democracy Noiser podcast, and our guest of today is Alfa Alfdan

Alessandro Oppo: Alfan Linge. So thank you for your time and for being here.

Alessandro Oppo: And I

Alessandro Oppo: have...

Alessandro Oppo: I mean, the first question is if you can say something about you, your experience, your background.

Alessandro Oppo: So

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. No. Thanks thanks

Halfdan Lynge: thanks, Alessandro, and thanks for inviting me to to to speak on on your podcast, and I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. So my name is Helfdan Lunge. You were close enough. It's a it's a Danish name. I'm from Denmark. It's a

little bit hard for non Danes to pronounce, so you were close enough.

Halfdan Lynge: I'm currently a

Halfdan Lynge: chief advisor in the Danish Agency for Digital Government,

Halfdan Lynge: which is the government agency in Denmark that runs most of the

Halfdan Lynge: digital

Halfdan Lynge: public infrastructure,

Halfdan Lynge: identity systems, payment services,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera. I work specifically

Halfdan Lynge: on data governance and sort of open data infrastructure.

Halfdan Lynge: We run-in open data platform, the Danish the national Danish national open data platform called DataVyVisa,

Halfdan Lynge: which is a metadata catalog for

Halfdan Lynge: for

Halfdan Lynge: government data from across government. I think it's about 300 oh no, three and a half thousand data sets now

Halfdan Lynge: from more than

Halfdan Lynge: around 100 agencies from across government.

Halfdan Lynge: So that's my daytime job. In addition to that,

Halfdan Lynge: I'm a visiting senior researcher at Wits University in South Africa, where I'm also a research fellow

Halfdan Lynge: at something called

Halfdan Lynge: Tyreseus Centre for

Halfdan Lynge: Digital Governance,

Halfdan Lynge: which is hosted at

Halfdan Lynge: Witch University.

Halfdan Lynge: The reason

Halfdan Lynge: I'm attached to a university in South Africa is that I was previously

Halfdan Lynge: a

Halfdan Lynge: faculty

Halfdan Lynge: member, a staff at Witch University.

Halfdan Lynge: I was a senior lecturer there,

Halfdan Lynge: taught political economy

Halfdan Lynge: and quantitative methods and and and was

Halfdan Lynge: part of a small team that contributed to setting up this this center, the Thyatira Center on Digital Governance.

Halfdan Lynge: Prior to that,

Halfdan Lynge: I mean, I've worked in this space for more than twenty years now. I

Halfdan Lynge: started my career as a

Halfdan Lynge: UN official. I was working with UNDP,

Halfdan Lynge: United Nations Development Program in...

Halfdan Lynge: First in in...

Halfdan Lynge: Shortly in Ethiopia, then Mozambique, and and lastly in in Bangladesh

Halfdan Lynge: where I was... These were the very sort of early phases of of what we today call digital government. At the time,

it was called... I think we called it e e government at the time. So these were very sort of early stage

initiatives on how to introduce technology in in public administration.

Halfdan Lynge: In Mozambique, I was I was

Halfdan Lynge: involved...

Halfdan Lynge: We were working with the electoral commission of

Halfdan Lynge: of Mozambique assisting

Halfdan Lynge: the technical secretariat with setting up biometric voter registration and verification

Halfdan Lynge: and introducing

Halfdan Lynge: sort of digital systems for the transfer of results.

Halfdan Lynge: But this is, you know, these are standard things today, but twenty years ago

Halfdan Lynge: it was fairly new.

Halfdan Lynge: In Bangladesh,

Halfdan Lynge: I worked

Halfdan Lynge: in what was called the resident coordinator's office. So that's the part of the UN that's responsible for coordinating

Halfdan Lynge: activities from across the different UN agencies.

Halfdan Lynge: And,

Halfdan Lynge: specifically,

Halfdan Lynge: I was involved in the initiative that eventually led to Bangladesh's first digitalization

Halfdan Lynge: strategy called Digital Bangladesh.

Halfdan Lynge: Again,

Halfdan Lynge: these were

Halfdan Lynge: is twenty years ago,

Halfdan Lynge: these were fairly sort of new things at the time, but nowadays they're

Halfdan Lynge: common practice.

Halfdan Lynge: After about six years, I think I left the UN

Halfdan Lynge: and went back to university

Halfdan Lynge: to pursue a PhD. I was a PhD researcher at Oxford University

Halfdan Lynge: and did that for about,

Halfdan Lynge: well, too long. These things often take longer than they are meant to. I think I was on and off in Oxford

for about six years.

Halfdan Lynge: And in the meantime, I

Halfdan Lynge: actually returned to Mozambique

Halfdan Lynge: and set up a

Halfdan Lynge: a Govtech

Halfdan Lynge: startup working

Halfdan Lynge: on...

Halfdan Lynge: Essentially, what we we did was develop a a platform

Halfdan Lynge: that allowed us to crowdsource

Halfdan Lynge: information

Halfdan Lynge: through mobile

Halfdan Lynge: phones.

Halfdan Lynge: And it was a fairly simple technology based on

Halfdan Lynge: sort of third generation mobile technology, so SMS and USST.

Halfdan Lynge: And we set up this platform that allowed us to send bulk SMS out and collect,

Halfdan Lynge: you know,

Halfdan Lynge: little questionnaires.

Halfdan Lynge: And it was a way of collecting

Halfdan Lynge: information

Halfdan Lynge: from citizens, and we used it for anything from

Halfdan Lynge: political

Halfdan Lynge: polling to market research. But the real sort of interest in application, I think, was for crowdsourcing and

Halfdan Lynge: creating a platform that allowed sort of citizens engagement real time in a and I think that's important to keep in mind.

Mozambique

Halfdan Lynge: at the time and to some extent still today was a very sort of low connectivity environment.

Halfdan Lynge: There was no three,

Halfdan Lynge: four, five gs coverage across the country, so you can't use smartphones,

Halfdan Lynge: you can't use Internet. So you have to design technological

Halfdan Lynge: solutions that allow people to use

Halfdan Lynge: sort of simple feature phones, SMS,

Halfdan Lynge: and that kind of things.

Halfdan Lynge: So I did that for

Halfdan Lynge: about also six years or so before I then

Halfdan Lynge: joined

Halfdan Lynge: the university in South Africa. So

Halfdan Lynge: it's a long story and my career has taken many twists and turns,

Halfdan Lynge: but I think the

Halfdan Lynge: underlying

Halfdan Lynge: threat is an interest

Halfdan Lynge: in how technology can be deployed. Specifically, I mean, I come from a kind of a data science background or

Halfdan Lynge: computational social science,

Halfdan Lynge: and that's

Halfdan Lynge: always been my sort of interest in how we can use technology and specifically sort of data

Halfdan Lynge: and data analytics to improve public service delivery,

Halfdan Lynge: whether that's through

Halfdan Lynge: fixing things in government or it's through,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, kind of a civic tech approach where you can use these kind of tools to hold government accountable,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera. But that's really sort of the

Halfdan Lynge: center of

Halfdan Lynge: my interest and

Halfdan Lynge: what I I suppose kind of connects all these different

Halfdan Lynge: different

Halfdan Lynge: elements of of of my professional career. Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: So you you have worked on a lot of things.

Alessandro Oppo: And I

Alessandro Oppo: was wondering with some

Alessandro Oppo: friends that

Alessandro Oppo: I was interviewed here in the podcast. Sometimes we were talking about the different... About

Alessandro Oppo: civic tech and gov tech, if it makes sense

Alessandro Oppo: to make two categories or not.

Alessandro Oppo: And what do you think? Yeah. I mean,

Halfdan Lynge: I have had extensive conversations with my previous colleagues and now friends at WITS University.

Halfdan Lynge: So at

Halfdan Lynge: Witsch University

Halfdan Lynge: and under the umbrella of the Thyatrisja Center

Halfdan Lynge: for Digital Governance,

Halfdan Lynge: we hosted something called

Halfdan Lynge: the Civic Tech Innovation Network,

Halfdan Lynge: which is a network of researchers,

Halfdan Lynge: activists,

Halfdan Lynge: sort of civic techies from across

Halfdan Lynge: the African Continent.

Halfdan Lynge: And until today, sit on what's called the reference group, so kind of like the body that oversees

Halfdan Lynge: there's a small secretariat that manages sort of day to day activities, but I still sit on that reference group. And in

that context, we often have these conversations, what's govtech, what's civic tech, and are we talking about the same thing?

Halfdan Lynge: In my

Halfdan Lynge: conceptualization,

Halfdan Lynge: civic tech

Halfdan Lynge: is deployment of technology

Halfdan Lynge: with the purpose of

Halfdan Lynge: enhancing transparency,

Halfdan Lynge: enhancing accountability,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera.

Halfdan Lynge: So it's kind of like working with the mechanics of a democratic state as a way to,

Halfdan Lynge: I suppose, force governments to deliver what they're supposed to. Right? If you increase transparency and accountability, it's a way

of ensuring that governments are actually

Halfdan Lynge: delivering what they're supposed to deliver.

Halfdan Lynge: Now,

Halfdan Lynge: maybe I should say, GovTech for me is kind of the I

Halfdan Lynge: think I lean very much on the sort of OACD definition of GovTech here. It's the collaboration

Halfdan Lynge: between

Halfdan Lynge: public sector and private sector, be it

Halfdan Lynge: for profit

Halfdan Lynge: corporations or

Halfdan Lynge: civil society initiatives, but it's a collaboration

Halfdan Lynge: between public and private with a view to improving

Halfdan Lynge: government service delivery, right? So improving

Halfdan Lynge: systems,

Halfdan Lynge: processes,

Halfdan Lynge: etc. Within government. But it very much centers on the sort of collaboration

Halfdan Lynge: between government and

Halfdan Lynge: non governmental sectors.

Halfdan Lynge: One of the reasons I think why there's often a confusion, and specifically in the context of Africa, is that the whole

civic tech concept for me presupposes

Halfdan Lynge: a functioning democratic state. Like,

Halfdan Lynge: if

Halfdan Lynge: greater accountability,

Halfdan Lynge: greater transparency,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera,

Halfdan Lynge: If that should lead to increased or improved service delivery,

Halfdan Lynge: it presupposes that there is some kind of relative functioning

Halfdan Lynge: state already,

Halfdan Lynge: that

Halfdan Lynge: the state, that the government is able to deliver something.

Halfdan Lynge: It might not do it for XYZ reasons. There can be sort of political economy questions. There can be capacity issues, but

there is like the core is in order and by

Halfdan Lynge: exposing inefficiencies

Halfdan Lynge: or by

Halfdan Lynge: pointing to deficiencies in government service delivery,

Halfdan Lynge: it's assumed that you can kind of like

Halfdan Lynge: push or notch or

Halfdan Lynge: force government to address its issues, right?

Halfdan Lynge: Now,

Halfdan Lynge: in the context of Africa,

Halfdan Lynge: that does not necessarily exist,

Halfdan Lynge: right?

Halfdan Lynge: Even if you expose,

Halfdan Lynge: let's say, corruption or inefficiencies

Halfdan Lynge: in the public sector in

Halfdan Lynge: let's take Mozambique, which is a country I worked in for many years,

Halfdan Lynge: there is no guarantee that that will translate to

Halfdan Lynge: any change, any improvement because of the incentives that are built into the system

Halfdan Lynge: and the sort of lack of fundamental accountability,

Halfdan Lynge: right? So the concept of civic tech,

Halfdan Lynge: in my view, does not necessarily apply if

Halfdan Lynge: the basics are not in order.

Halfdan Lynge: And the implication of that is that

Halfdan Lynge: if you look at the initiatives

Halfdan Lynge: and the organisations

Halfdan Lynge: and the people that are active and involved in the Civic Tech Innovation

Halfdan Lynge: Network, which is an Africa specific

Halfdan Lynge: network, you would often see that the applications,

Halfdan Lynge: the deployments,

Halfdan Lynge: the projects they get involved in is much closer to what I would consider GovTech,

Halfdan Lynge: simply because

Halfdan Lynge: they are essentially trying to fill the vacuum or fill the,

Halfdan Lynge: yeah, the vacuum that's missing. The

Halfdan Lynge: absent state creates a vacuum, right? And now civil society,

Halfdan Lynge: private sector are trying to fill that vacuum,

Halfdan Lynge: be it in terms of

Halfdan Lynge: making sure that

Halfdan Lynge: services reach the

Halfdan Lynge: most remote areas or that citizens have basic information.

Halfdan Lynge: So it's much closer to GovTech, whereas

Halfdan Lynge: as the sort of traditional

Halfdan Lynge: civic tech initiatives,

Halfdan Lynge: even if it's called the Civic Tech Innovation Network, they are not necessarily the sort of bigger bulk of

Halfdan Lynge: initiatives or

Halfdan Lynge: projects in the African Continent. Now, that's my personal view, and I have had many conversations with my colleagues

Halfdan Lynge: at this university and across the African Continent, and they don't necessarily agree, but at least it's kind of like my thinking

around it that there's a clear distinction.

Halfdan Lynge: Oh, there's obviously an overlap in the mid, but they are fundamentally two things that... And and they are and they are

solutions to different types of problems.

Halfdan Lynge: That's a long answer to something that shouldn't necessarily be that complex, but I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Absolutely.

Alessandro Oppo: I think that...

Alessandro Oppo: I mean, if

Alessandro Oppo: people that are in this field

Alessandro Oppo: repeatedly

Alessandro Oppo: talk about

Alessandro Oppo: the distinction

Alessandro Oppo: of civic tech and gov tech maybe

Alessandro Oppo: is not so...

Alessandro Oppo: I mean, it's worth it to think about it. And I

Alessandro Oppo: was thinking in relation to the context of Africa,

Alessandro Oppo: I can imagine that many other things were different,

Alessandro Oppo: but if you could maybe highlight some differences between

Alessandro Oppo: Africa and

Alessandro Oppo: maybe Europe in term of

Alessandro Oppo: digital transformation

Alessandro Oppo: or...

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. I mean, it's a very

Halfdan Lynge: interesting,

Halfdan Lynge: but also extremely

Halfdan Lynge: broad question, obviously.

Halfdan Lynge: I think I can,

Halfdan Lynge: I mean, I can only speak from my personal experience there? I think when

Halfdan Lynge: we started out, when my

Halfdan Lynge: business partner and I set up

Halfdan Lynge: the Govtech startup initially, we weren't really thinking of Govtech or Civic Tech. We were just thinking about a

Halfdan Lynge: a a

Halfdan Lynge: creating an organization that could deliver

Halfdan Lynge: data products,

Halfdan Lynge: developing a platform that would allow us to

Halfdan Lynge: generate more information

Halfdan Lynge: about

Halfdan Lynge: the realities

Halfdan Lynge: of rural Mozambique,

Halfdan Lynge: of rural Africa,

Halfdan Lynge: and thereby creating a knowledge base that policy

Halfdan Lynge: can be built upon, right? Creating evidence for

Halfdan Lynge: government and other policymakers.

Halfdan Lynge: Now,

Halfdan Lynge: the first challenge obviously is

Halfdan Lynge: how

Halfdan Lynge: you I mean, there's a fundamental infrastructure issue. I briefly spoke about it. So designing or developing an application

Halfdan Lynge: that allows us to connect

Halfdan Lynge: to rural Mozambique

Halfdan Lynge: required

Halfdan Lynge: you know, you have to simplify it as much as possible, simply because we cannot assume that people have smartphones.

Halfdan Lynge: We cannot assume that people have

Halfdan Lynge: three,

Halfdan Lynge: four, five gs connectivity.

Halfdan Lynge: We cannot even

Halfdan Lynge: if they have a smartphone, even if they have connectivity,

Halfdan Lynge: we cannot assume they have access to

Halfdan Lynge: data.

Halfdan Lynge: So the fundamental

Halfdan Lynge: infrastructural

Halfdan Lynge: issues are different in a context

Halfdan Lynge: like Mozambique. So you have to build

Halfdan Lynge: on that, and you have to start with the realities. And that's why we ended up with this very simple application that

used SMS

Halfdan Lynge: exchanges,

Halfdan Lynge: USSD

Halfdan Lynge: sessions, which is another

Halfdan Lynge: simple mobile product call that allowed us to make these very simple questionnaires. We could ask very short questions,

Halfdan Lynge: and we could ask, you know, maybe 15, 20 questions through kind of like an interaction.

Halfdan Lynge: So the

Halfdan Lynge: the fundamental

Halfdan Lynge: deployment of technology

Halfdan Lynge: is completely

Halfdan Lynge: different.

Halfdan Lynge: I think a second difference is that

Halfdan Lynge: the business

Halfdan Lynge: models around

Halfdan Lynge: GovTech or Civic Tech is also completely different

Halfdan Lynge: because

Halfdan Lynge: you cannot use the same kind of

Halfdan Lynge: you cannot rely on micropayments,

Halfdan Lynge: really. You cannot rely

Halfdan Lynge: on on people willing to

Halfdan Lynge: pay for services.

Halfdan Lynge: You cannot rely on on advertisement or anything. I mean, any kind of application

Halfdan Lynge: deployment has to have some kind of of of

Halfdan Lynge: financial

Halfdan Lynge: economic base.

Halfdan Lynge: You cannot rely

Halfdan Lynge: it was very difficult my experience is it's very difficult to get, like,

Halfdan Lynge: sort of seed funding

Halfdan Lynge: innovation grants

Halfdan Lynge: that are quite common to

Halfdan Lynge: access in Europe and especially North America. So you really also have to think of an operation

Halfdan Lynge: where you have to start you have to start making money from day one. Right?

Halfdan Lynge: You have to be able because, I mean, you cannot it's

Halfdan Lynge: unlikely or you have to be very good to kind of get an investor on board to say, Okay, I'll pay for

your expenses or, you know, here's,

Halfdan Lynge: I don't know,

Halfdan Lynge: a few million

Halfdan Lynge: a few million dollars to run the operation for the first two, three years. It's very unlikely to happen. So you have

to think of ways that creates a cash flow already

Halfdan Lynge: from the beginning.

Halfdan Lynge: You have to think of I mean, our ambition was also let's create let's set up this company in such a way

that we have a commercial arm

Halfdan Lynge: that generates revenue. We can use the same application,

Halfdan Lynge: the same platform to

Halfdan Lynge: sell data product services for

Halfdan Lynge: private companies,

Halfdan Lynge: non governmental organization,

Halfdan Lynge: UN agencies, etcetera, we

Halfdan Lynge: can generate some kind of revenue over here and then we can use that to

Halfdan Lynge: subsidize

Halfdan Lynge: sort of more

Halfdan Lynge: civil society, civic tech type initiatives. We think it's important that we generate some information about XYZ

Halfdan Lynge: and we now have a revenue stream that can subsidize.

Halfdan Lynge: That was our

Halfdan Lynge: ambition from

Halfdan Lynge: the very beginning, but you see it

Halfdan Lynge: really depends on the ability of identifying that

Halfdan Lynge: revenue stream, that cash flow.

Halfdan Lynge: I think that's also completely different, at least. I mean, I haven't worked in kind of like the startup ecosystems

Halfdan Lynge: in

Halfdan Lynge: Europe, but from what I observe

Halfdan Lynge: in my current role

Halfdan Lynge: is that

Halfdan Lynge: most of them have some kind of grant or some kind of investor that allows them to,

Halfdan Lynge: you know,

Halfdan Lynge: spend at least a year, maybe two years developing

Halfdan Lynge: an organization,

Halfdan Lynge: developing a product, developing services before they're required to actually start making money. And it completely changes your mindset

and how you approach it. I think that's also a big difference

Halfdan Lynge: from how these initiatives are structured in an African context versus

Halfdan Lynge: a European

Halfdan Lynge: context.

Halfdan Lynge: The third I want to I mean, again, that's a very long question or very long answer.

Halfdan Lynge: The third leg, I would say, is kind of regulatory.

Halfdan Lynge: Often

Halfdan Lynge: the regulatory

Halfdan Lynge: environment is

Halfdan Lynge: not as clearly defined.

Halfdan Lynge: There might be areas that are not fully regulated

Halfdan Lynge: in an African context, and even if it is regulated on paper,

Halfdan Lynge: the enforcement of the regulation is inconsistent.

Halfdan Lynge: And obviously, that makes it very difficult to navigate as

Halfdan Lynge: a startup, because

Halfdan Lynge: it's not entirely clear what you're allowed to do and what you're now allowed to do, and some things might not be

allowed, but still,

Halfdan Lynge: if you go ahead and do it,

Halfdan Lynge: nobody will say anything. I mean, one of the concrete challenges we had was that

Halfdan Lynge: in the

Halfdan Lynge: market we were operating in,

Halfdan Lynge: meaning

Halfdan Lynge: companies that were selling kind of like data services, data products.

Halfdan Lynge: We often experienced that we were competing with

Halfdan Lynge: international,

Halfdan Lynge: non Mozambican,

Halfdan Lynge: non African companies without any kind of legal basis for operating in the continent,

Halfdan Lynge: thereby technically not

Halfdan Lynge: being allowed to

Halfdan Lynge: sell those services, and yet they

Halfdan Lynge: still did. So

Halfdan Lynge: they were doing things they were not allowed to do, and yet we often lost

Halfdan Lynge: contract to some of these big

Halfdan Lynge: international organizations or international

Halfdan Lynge: companies.

Halfdan Lynge: So again, the regulatory environment is

Halfdan Lynge: very difficult to understand, to navigate,

Halfdan Lynge: and

Halfdan Lynge: often

Halfdan Lynge: the most successful is the one who's willing to

Halfdan Lynge: take the most risks and operate

Halfdan Lynge: on sort of the regulatory

Halfdan Lynge: gray zone. And that makes it, at least in my experience, makes it very difficult. At times, yeah,

Halfdan Lynge: it's

Halfdan Lynge: not very nice when you're unsure

Halfdan Lynge: of what is allowed and what's not allowed, and you can see that people who are consistently breaking the law are still

getting away with it.

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. So those were the kind of three areas, the technological infrastructure,

Halfdan Lynge: the sort of financial models around Govtech, and then the regulatory environment.

Halfdan Lynge: In all different spheres, they are completely different.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. I can imagine a lot of differences.

Alessandro Oppo: Also,

Alessandro Oppo: social.

Alessandro Oppo: And as well, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And going back to,

Alessandro Oppo: let's say, to Europe.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Maybe to

Alessandro Oppo: to Denmark.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. What... I mean, you you said that you work for the

Alessandro Oppo: Danish agency for digital government.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. And in that case,

Alessandro Oppo: what were, like,

Alessandro Oppo: let's say, the job to do and also what what was,

Alessandro Oppo: let's say, difficult or particularly

Alessandro Oppo: interesting?

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. I

Halfdan Lynge: mean, should say,

Halfdan Lynge: work at the agency for district government,

Halfdan Lynge: but obviously, I can't speak on behalf of the agency. So

Halfdan Lynge: my views are only my views,

Halfdan Lynge: so just to be clear about that. I think

Halfdan Lynge: I mean, obviously so I

Halfdan Lynge: joined the Danish government about a little bit more than two years ago after spending

Halfdan Lynge: most of my professional life in

Halfdan Lynge: Southern Africa.

Halfdan Lynge: And I think

Halfdan Lynge: coming from that angle and going into

Halfdan Lynge: a

Halfdan Lynge: government entity like,

Halfdan Lynge: like the Danish or the Danish Asian Futility Government, it's it's,

Halfdan Lynge: It's a very

Halfdan Lynge: highly functioning,

Halfdan Lynge: highly efficient

Halfdan Lynge: organisational

Halfdan Lynge: system where I mean, I think Denmark has been extremely successful in already

Halfdan Lynge: fifteen, twenty years ago.

Halfdan Lynge: The government took some

Halfdan Lynge: bold decisions and started

Halfdan Lynge: implementing digital public infrastructure,

Halfdan Lynge: forcing government agencies

Halfdan Lynge: to use sort of digital platforms,

Halfdan Lynge: forcing citizens to engage with

Halfdan Lynge: government through digital channels. So there were some very bold, ambitious and very

Halfdan Lynge: visionary decisions that were taken

Halfdan Lynge: fifteen, twenty years ago. And I think even until today,

Halfdan Lynge: the

Halfdan Lynge: Danish public sector benefits

Halfdan Lynge: from that. That has kind of like kept a high level of

Halfdan Lynge: quality in digital governments and service provision for many, many years.

Halfdan Lynge: I think also

Halfdan Lynge: it has become a little bit of

Halfdan Lynge: how should I put it

Halfdan Lynge: I think

Halfdan Lynge: because it has been such a success and it has sustained a high level over many years,

Halfdan Lynge: I think also there's

Halfdan Lynge: a little bit of sort of

Halfdan Lynge: I don't know if it's inertia

Halfdan Lynge: or

Halfdan Lynge: kind of like

Halfdan Lynge: comfort in, Okay, we've already received the high level. So,

Halfdan Lynge: I feel that kind of like innovation

Halfdan Lynge: has not really kept up,

Halfdan Lynge: and you can see that, for example, in the latest OECD

Halfdan Lynge: digital government index

Halfdan Lynge: last year.

Halfdan Lynge: Denmark dropped from, I think, a third to an eighth place. And I don't I mean, these indices are what they are,

and it's just a

Halfdan Lynge: proxy measure.

Halfdan Lynge: But I think it

Halfdan Lynge: reflects a little bit of

Halfdan Lynge: yeah, I think it's time that people

Halfdan Lynge: set new goals and kind of start

Halfdan Lynge: thinking

Halfdan Lynge: not just of

Halfdan Lynge: fixing the little

Halfdan Lynge: shortcomings here and there, but actually start

Halfdan Lynge: creating a vision for what do we want digital government to look like in five, ten, fifteen years. And a lot of

that work has already started. So two years ago,

Halfdan Lynge: the government created a

Halfdan Lynge: intergovernmental

Halfdan Lynge: task force on artificial

Halfdan Lynge: intelligence,

Halfdan Lynge: and there's

Halfdan Lynge: a lot of things happening,

Halfdan Lynge: but it still hasn't

Halfdan Lynge: fully materialized

Halfdan Lynge: into like a concrete

Halfdan Lynge: vision. I I hope hope it's coming, and I

Halfdan Lynge: think so, because, I mean,

Halfdan Lynge: these are views that I hear also from many colleagues,

Halfdan Lynge: but we are not quite there yet. We need to kind of set

Halfdan Lynge: the next goals. I think in concrete

Halfdan Lynge: case, again, on open data and open data portals,

Halfdan Lynge: one of the things we are seeing is that there is an increased activity

Halfdan Lynge: from AI agents

Halfdan Lynge: because

Halfdan Lynge: citizens

Halfdan Lynge: start using AI agents to they're not just using a browser anymore, they use an AI agent. So, you know, you can

imagine that

Halfdan Lynge: Citizen

Halfdan Lynge: X received some kind of

Halfdan Lynge: letter from government that, you know, they no longer qualify for something,

Halfdan Lynge: and for that citizen to make sense of it, what they will typically do is they'll take the letter and upload it

in, you know, some kind of a

Halfdan Lynge: Claude or ChatGPT

Halfdan Lynge: or whatever they use,

Halfdan Lynge: and ask that agent

Halfdan Lynge: or assistant to

Halfdan Lynge: interpret

Halfdan Lynge: the information.

Halfdan Lynge: They also ask that agent

Halfdan Lynge: to seek information.

Halfdan Lynge: Okay, so what are my options now? Can I appeal the decision? Do I qualify for something else, etcetera? So all of

a sudden you realize that that agent becomes

Halfdan Lynge: the interface between citizens

Halfdan Lynge: and certainly information about government, but soon also

Halfdan Lynge: actual

Halfdan Lynge: engagement with the government, right? They will very soon expect that agent also to prepare applications,

Halfdan Lynge: maybe even file applications,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera, etcetera.

Halfdan Lynge: And all of a sudden you have this situation where the relationship between government and citizens become agent mediated,

Halfdan Lynge: and governments

Halfdan Lynge: do not control the agent. They are provided by third party providers.

Halfdan Lynge: Governments can develop their own agents, and

Halfdan Lynge: that's happening all over. I mean, you briefly spoke about the Agencik State Initiative. That's the whole idea of how do we

set up government to

Halfdan Lynge: develop

Halfdan Lynge: and run government business through AI agents, right? I think

Halfdan Lynge: so that's kind of the government side of things.

Halfdan Lynge: I think a much bigger challenge and

Halfdan Lynge: something that requires

Halfdan Lynge: much greater rethinking of how government is restructured is the fact that

Halfdan Lynge: the agents become the interface.

Halfdan Lynge: The third party agents become the interface of

Halfdan Lynge: government citizen relations. So how do we make sure that even if we don't control that, the front end that's technically what

it becomes the front end of governments become a third party agent. Now what can we do with the back end of

government?

Halfdan Lynge: What can we do with the digital public infrastructure to ensure that the information

Halfdan Lynge: that's or that that information is accessible and available so that the agent doesn't, you know, the third party agent doesn't hallucinate

and misinform the citizens, etcetera, etcetera.

Halfdan Lynge: So there's some kind of fundamental

Halfdan Lynge: rethinking

Halfdan Lynge: that has to be done

Halfdan Lynge: where we have to

Halfdan Lynge: understand

Halfdan Lynge: and

Halfdan Lynge: perhaps redirect initiatives,

Halfdan Lynge: investments to accommodate

Halfdan Lynge: for the scenario when that third party agent becomes an important interface

Halfdan Lynge: between citizens and the state.

Halfdan Lynge: For us, in the case of sort of open data portal and access to open data, that means that, so, okay, we

have this portal now, but if it's if the future user of that portal is not a researcher,

Halfdan Lynge: a student, a journalist,

Halfdan Lynge: a

Halfdan Lynge: civil society activist or whatever, who is either

Halfdan Lynge: going to a portal and searching for specific data or

Halfdan Lynge: coding up some kind of data pipeline where, you know, connect to this API, connect, you know, there's always a human kind

of sitting in that, and that's how the platform was developed

Halfdan Lynge: and that's how we have assumed it was used.

Halfdan Lynge: But now we are seeing that actually already we see that it's being used autonomously

Halfdan Lynge: by agents.

Halfdan Lynge: They might be agents prompted by citizens, but they are acting, you know, they are prompted in a way,

Halfdan Lynge: I

Halfdan Lynge: want to know

Halfdan Lynge: XYZ about government, and then the agent itself goes and looks for data,

Halfdan Lynge: starts

Halfdan Lynge: compiling data set, merging data set and trying to answer the questions. That raises a lot of questions about

Halfdan Lynge: the architecture of the portal.

Halfdan Lynge: The metadata we

Halfdan Lynge: publish on the portal,

Halfdan Lynge: what metadata standards, what metadata fields,

Halfdan Lynge: other kinds of protocols.

Halfdan Lynge: Maybe it's not enough just to have an API, maybe we need something called

Halfdan Lynge: context

Halfdan Lynge: protocol, which is a

Halfdan Lynge: type of protocol that accommodates specifically or that caters specifically

Halfdan Lynge: to AI agents. So it raises a lot of questions and we've only kind of like started

Halfdan Lynge: addressing some of these issues and to really understand

Halfdan Lynge: how

Halfdan Lynge: AI agents

Halfdan Lynge: interact with infrastructure,

Halfdan Lynge: specifically Open Data Portal,

Halfdan Lynge: and what it means in terms of or

Halfdan Lynge: what the implications are for us in terms of

Halfdan Lynge: changing or adapting or

Halfdan Lynge: reconfiguring

Halfdan Lynge: the portal and the broader infrastructure.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. I saw that these things about AI agents change a lot. Also,

Alessandro Oppo: I saw recently a news that

Alessandro Oppo: can since are related, like,

Alessandro Oppo: that as an example, Anthropic,

Alessandro Oppo: Cload.

Alessandro Oppo: Basically, they are not using Git anymore. They built a new protocol because

Alessandro Oppo: Git was good for humans and not for AI agents. Because when AI agents read, they have to write in a very

quick way Yeah. Then Git is not enough.

Alessandro Oppo: So I was thinking about how all the infrastructure now is made for humans.

Alessandro Oppo: But if we are moving toward an

Alessandro Oppo: Internet

Alessandro Oppo: that is mainly used by AI agents, then Yeah. Maybe call me. I suspect you are referring to the model

Halfdan Lynge: context protocol, MCP, which was developed initially by Anthropic, but now I think it was handed over to the Linux Foundation. So

it is

Halfdan Lynge: it was a protocol developed by Anthropic,

Halfdan Lynge: but it's slowly becoming the kind of standard for how

Halfdan Lynge: agents interact with databases. So you can take an existing database and you can implement an

Halfdan Lynge: MCP server around it, and that allows the agents to

Halfdan Lynge: interact with that data in a standardized

Halfdan Lynge: format. So it's one of the

Halfdan Lynge: steps that we are considering

Halfdan Lynge: whether we need to implement that around

Halfdan Lynge: government data

Halfdan Lynge: in order for AI agents to actually fully utilize and fully,

Halfdan Lynge: yeah, to have access to the full,

Halfdan Lynge: depth of all information available within government instead of guessing.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Now in that case, was about the Git protocol, so the one that is, let's say, under GitHub.

Alessandro Oppo: Oh, okay. Sorry. I misunderstood you. Yeah. Yeah. No. Sorry for the pronunciation maybe.

Alessandro Oppo: And... But,

Alessandro Oppo: yeah, it was interesting because it showed the difference between Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: What this was

Alessandro Oppo: I mean,

Alessandro Oppo: was okay in the past, maybe not okay in the future, that Yeah. This protocol.

Alessandro Oppo: And

Alessandro Oppo: and and, yeah, before you say, like,

Alessandro Oppo: how, like, a digital,

Alessandro Oppo: I don't know, government

Alessandro Oppo: or... Could look or should look like in five, ten or more years.

Alessandro Oppo: And,

Alessandro Oppo: we mentioned also the agentic state.

Alessandro Oppo: And

Alessandro Oppo: so...

Alessandro Oppo: Because we don't have, like,

Alessandro Oppo: let's say, an exact timeline,

Alessandro Oppo: we can just see that technology is evolving very faster.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. And also citizens

Alessandro Oppo: are start using technology also. Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: I mean,

Alessandro Oppo: also before technology.

Alessandro Oppo: I mean, specifically

Alessandro Oppo: AI.

Alessandro Oppo: And so I wonder if you have

Alessandro Oppo: a sort of

Alessandro Oppo: possible timeline. I know I know it's very difficult to to

Alessandro Oppo: say, but Yeah. How do you imagine, like, the future of digital transformation and democracy?

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. No. I I I don't dare... Because listen.

Halfdan Lynge: One one year ago or let's say one one and a half years ago,

Halfdan Lynge: it was

Halfdan Lynge: only experts

Halfdan Lynge: who

Halfdan Lynge: knew what an AI agent was.

Halfdan Lynge: And now, I think over

Halfdan Lynge: the last perhaps six to nine months, it's now it's everywhere. Everyone's talking about it.

Halfdan Lynge: Even my dad, who's nearly 80 years old, he understands it. He knows what it is, and he's

Halfdan Lynge: he's using cloth to to seek information. So it's just to say it's

Halfdan Lynge: it's moving

Halfdan Lynge: extremely fast.

Halfdan Lynge: And and my

Halfdan Lynge: I I I don't dare

Halfdan Lynge: guessing,

Halfdan Lynge: predicting what

Halfdan Lynge: the timeline is. I think

Halfdan Lynge: I'm pretty confident that I have an well,

Halfdan Lynge: what I think

Halfdan Lynge: will look like, digital transformation or digital government, what it will look like,

Halfdan Lynge: I don't know if it'll be

Halfdan Lynge: one, three, five, ten years.

Halfdan Lynge: My concern, though, is that

Halfdan Lynge: the technology

Halfdan Lynge: and people's citizens'

Halfdan Lynge: expectations

Halfdan Lynge: are

Halfdan Lynge: moving faster than

Halfdan Lynge: governments can respond to. What do I mean by that?

Halfdan Lynge: I think

Halfdan Lynge: right now you will see that governments all over the world are busy developing sort of first generation AI

Halfdan Lynge: assistance. Maybe they've already piloted some of them or they're,

Halfdan Lynge: you know,

Halfdan Lynge: deploying the first examples of

Halfdan Lynge: AI assistants or AI agents that can...

Halfdan Lynge: That typically, you know, they'll implement

Halfdan Lynge: an AI assistant on top of some national citizens portal, and that gives you kind of like a very simplified way of

interacting with the content of

Halfdan Lynge: that portal.

Halfdan Lynge: Now,

Halfdan Lynge: I think

Halfdan Lynge: that by the time we fully

Halfdan Lynge: deploy or launch these kind of solutions,

Halfdan Lynge: citizens will already have

Halfdan Lynge: absorbed

Halfdan Lynge: Claude or ChatGPPG

Halfdan Lynge: or DeepSeek or whatever into their daily life, which means the expectations

Halfdan Lynge: to an AI agent,

Halfdan Lynge: what it can do and

Halfdan Lynge: how to interact with it and what kind of problems it can solve, is already fairly high because these are extremely capable

Halfdan Lynge: applications.

Halfdan Lynge: And then my concern is that, you know, with citizens' expectations already up here, you know, governments are taking their time because

you have to be cautious, know,

Halfdan Lynge: whether it's kind of like a standard government

Halfdan Lynge: bureaucracy, procurement takes time, etcetera. It just takes time to develop things in government

Halfdan Lynge: for good reasons, because you have to be sure these are public money. You have to make sure that it's spent in

Halfdan Lynge: a defensible way.

Halfdan Lynge: But my fear is we are taking too long, and by the time we launch a product,

Halfdan Lynge: its technical

Halfdan Lynge: performance is

Halfdan Lynge: down here when citizens are already expecting something here.

Halfdan Lynge: So that creates kind of like a,

Halfdan Lynge: again, vacuum between what citizens expect and what governments are capable of delivering. And you will see a private sector that very

quickly will kind of like step in and fill up that vacuum.

Halfdan Lynge: That can be a good thing. That is what I would define

Halfdan Lynge: as govtech. We had the conversation about govtechcivictech.

Halfdan Lynge: If governments could start collaborating

Halfdan Lynge: with private sector, with civil society around, okay,

Halfdan Lynge: for

Halfdan Lynge: good reasons, government can only deliver

Halfdan Lynge: this kind of like technical performance.

Halfdan Lynge: Citizens are expecting something else.

Halfdan Lynge: How can we create an ecosystem

Halfdan Lynge: where we jointly try to fill that gap or fill that vacuum?

Halfdan Lynge: That is my

Halfdan Lynge: ideal scenario.

Halfdan Lynge: My fear is that that vacuum would be filled by

Halfdan Lynge: big mega tech companies

Halfdan Lynge: that... Well, we're already seeing signs of it and that it kind of becomes,

Halfdan Lynge: how should I put it, a new Google. If you think of Google in the mid two thousands, that kind of became

the the face of the Internet for many for many people.

Halfdan Lynge: And thereby thereby

Halfdan Lynge: we're able to extract advertisement,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, money,

Halfdan Lynge: etcetera. And because of of that,

Halfdan Lynge: I I fear that could be that could happen again because you have these

Halfdan Lynge: big tech companies that are already providing this kind of

Halfdan Lynge: that become the new interface.

Halfdan Lynge: I mean, if people are engaging with the

Halfdan Lynge: the web,

Halfdan Lynge: with with the outside world through an AI agent, well, then that AI agent, despite what they claim and despite their,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, lofty words about,

Halfdan Lynge: humanity

Halfdan Lynge: and safety and blah, blah, blah, blah, it gives you a lot of power if you become that window into the world.

And

Halfdan Lynge: and I think that's what... From my personal perspective, that's that's my my concern that we we create these kind of, like,

Halfdan Lynge: extremely

Halfdan Lynge: dominant players in in in in the market.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Also because,

Alessandro Oppo: I mean, there are not there are not so many players. I mean, if we talk about AI.

Alessandro Oppo: And so also there is the question

Alessandro Oppo: with,

Alessandro Oppo: let's say, the...

Alessandro Oppo: And and this was also with Google,

Alessandro Oppo: like, if Google is providing services,

Alessandro Oppo: I mean different kind of services

Alessandro Oppo: in...

Alessandro Oppo: Sorry,

Alessandro Oppo: different kind of services

Alessandro Oppo: than the state,

Alessandro Oppo: because maybe the state is offering welfare and so

Alessandro Oppo: And...

Alessandro Oppo: But, yeah, then I I wonder who is

Alessandro Oppo: who is the state?

Alessandro Oppo: Like, because let's say, if I don't have to go on the, I don't know, italy.gov.it,

Alessandro Oppo: but I can just, I don't know, on Google or on Charge to

Alessandro Oppo: use it as a interface

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Instead of on the official website of the government,

Alessandro Oppo: then my relation is with Google or JGPT instead of that with

Alessandro Oppo: the government.

Alessandro Oppo: And also I was thinking That's a good point. Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: And

Alessandro Oppo: I'm thinking the same maybe could be also with universities

Alessandro Oppo: because I had this thought some years ago when

Alessandro Oppo: we switched basically

Alessandro Oppo: from...

Alessandro Oppo: The Milan University switched from their hosted email

Alessandro Oppo: account

Alessandro Oppo: to

Alessandro Oppo: Microsoft once. Mhmm. So everything was organized inside Microsoft.

Alessandro Oppo: And so I was like... Basically,

Alessandro Oppo: it was a sort of digital twin of the university inside Microsoft. Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: So I had this kind of thoughts.

Alessandro Oppo: And

Alessandro Oppo: then I was thinking if there is the, let's say, a sort of agentic state or different version of the agentic state

in different countries,

Alessandro Oppo: like,

Alessandro Oppo: do you think that the,

Alessandro Oppo: let's say, representative system

Alessandro Oppo: should be adopted in some way?

Alessandro Oppo: Because also the representative system was

Alessandro Oppo: built

Alessandro Oppo: and there were not AI agents.

Alessandro Oppo: So I wonder, like, in the future if also the political system should be

Alessandro Oppo: adapted

Alessandro Oppo: to the new kind of infrastructure,

Alessandro Oppo: Realik.

Halfdan Lynge: It's a good question, and I I don't think I have a... I have an answer. I I do think that

Halfdan Lynge: at some point... And, again, I don't know whether that's one,

Halfdan Lynge: two, three, five, ten, twenty five years from now.

Halfdan Lynge: But I think,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, our our democracies

Halfdan Lynge: have worked in the same way. In many ways, the fundamental

Halfdan Lynge: processes

Halfdan Lynge: and institutions

Halfdan Lynge: and

Halfdan Lynge: means of engagement

Halfdan Lynge: are

Halfdan Lynge: largely the same

Halfdan Lynge: for the last, what I mean, it depends on how you define it, but

Halfdan Lynge: you could say one hundred or two hundred years depending on kind of like how strict you are.

Halfdan Lynge: And we have

Halfdan Lynge: obviously, over a period of one or two hundred years, there's been like

Halfdan Lynge: technological developments,

Halfdan Lynge: but we've still been able to accommodate for these technological developments within the existing framework

Halfdan Lynge: by,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, tweaking things, extending things,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, oh, I mean, just to look at over the last twenty five years, oh, we can do public hearings online

or,

Halfdan Lynge: you know,

Halfdan Lynge: we don't need to be physically present

Halfdan Lynge: to vote,

Halfdan Lynge: you know. So

Halfdan Lynge: accommodated

Halfdan Lynge: for the technological developments

Halfdan Lynge: in some ways without fundamentally rethinking the system. But I think

Halfdan Lynge: at some point we're

Halfdan Lynge: going to reach

Halfdan Lynge: as kind of like, you

Halfdan Lynge: know, we are stretching the elastic a little bit. Right? And

Halfdan Lynge: my concern is at some point it's gonna snap. Right?

Halfdan Lynge: The technological

Halfdan Lynge: realities,

Halfdan Lynge: the daily lives of citizens is now too far

Halfdan Lynge: from the assumptions

Halfdan Lynge: of a

Halfdan Lynge: democracy.

Halfdan Lynge: And I think before before it snaps, I think we need to rethink.

Halfdan Lynge: Okay.

Halfdan Lynge: If we we if we want to maintain the same principles that are embedded in democracy,

Halfdan Lynge: but we want to apply those or we want to give

Halfdan Lynge: them some kind of concrete form given our technological

Halfdan Lynge: context,

Halfdan Lynge: we need to start rethinking

Halfdan Lynge: what...

Halfdan Lynge: How do we vote?

Halfdan Lynge: How do we engage with citizens? How do citizens

Halfdan Lynge: organize themselves? How do they aggregate interest? How do we represent those interests in parliament? How does the parliament work?

Halfdan Lynge: How does a legislative process work, etcetera?

Halfdan Lynge: All of these fundamental things that have really I mean, we've tweaked with it, but we haven't really fundamentally changed them for,

Halfdan Lynge: yeah, I want to say hundreds of years, certainly in some countries.

Halfdan Lynge: But I think we need to do that. I don't have the answers,

Halfdan Lynge: but my

Halfdan Lynge: concern is that we are still too focused

Halfdan Lynge: and

Halfdan Lynge: too focused on

Halfdan Lynge: changing,

Halfdan Lynge: adapting the existing institutions

Halfdan Lynge: rather than rethinking the institution themselves.

Halfdan Lynge: I understand why.

Halfdan Lynge: The reason for that is obviously that it's extremely risky. If you kind of like open it up and say, Okay, you

know, let's just think out of the box and basically

Halfdan Lynge: reinvent democratic

Halfdan Lynge: institutions,

Halfdan Lynge: it's a risky process. We have something that has served us well for many, many years, and if we now open it

up and say, now we can think of something else, it's a very delicate

Halfdan Lynge: process or a delicate point in time.

Halfdan Lynge: So rather than do that,

Halfdan Lynge: let's try to, you know, make these little tweaks and adjustments

Halfdan Lynge: around it without completely breaking the existing institution.

Halfdan Lynge: And that, I think, surely can, you know, we can keep going like that for another

Halfdan Lynge: I don't know, maybe we can continue that like that for another

Halfdan Lynge: fifty or one hundred years, I don't know. But my concern is that at some point, you know, the elastic is stretched

too far and it's going to snap,

Halfdan Lynge: and then

Halfdan Lynge: are kind of like caught

Halfdan Lynge: off guard and as

Halfdan Lynge: societies,

Halfdan Lynge: we are not, you know, we're not ready for it. We haven't done our homework.

Halfdan Lynge: But I think I know you've spoken on your podcast also with

Halfdan Lynge: other people who spent more time than me thinking about these kind of like fundamental

Halfdan Lynge: democratic issues.

Halfdan Lynge: So,

Halfdan Lynge: yeah. I I think that's

Halfdan Lynge: as close as I'll get to answering your question.

Alessandro Oppo: No. I mean, I I know they are

Alessandro Oppo: open question. Basically, there are no

Alessandro Oppo: no

Alessandro Oppo: answers. I I mean, I I

Alessandro Oppo: believe, as you said, that

Alessandro Oppo: the elastic will stretch at a certain point.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. I also don't know when.

Alessandro Oppo: I mean, I saw that in history there were several changes in how people took decisions,

Alessandro Oppo: so I can imagine that also in the future there will be maybe another one.

Alessandro Oppo: Then I wonder if...

Alessandro Oppo: Also, we don't know if we will have technology in one hundredth year.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Yeah. We assume.

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah.

Halfdan Lynge: But for example, I mean, I always think about it. Okay. So why did we invent representative democracy?

Halfdan Lynge: We invented representative democracy because

Halfdan Lynge: taking decisions

Halfdan Lynge: required

Halfdan Lynge: physical proximity,

Halfdan Lynge: right? We had to sit together to discuss issues and take a decision about A or B.

Halfdan Lynge: Now, before there was telephone,

Halfdan Lynge: internet, any kind of technology, that required a physical person to travel from

Halfdan Lynge: district X to the capital and meet with other representatives.

Halfdan Lynge: So that's, for me at least, is the kind of like the fundamental reason why we create a representative democracy.

Halfdan Lynge: Now,

Halfdan Lynge: that condition no longer exists. First of all,

Halfdan Lynge: we don't need to be physically present in the same location.

Halfdan Lynge: So

Halfdan Lynge: do we need

Halfdan Lynge: representative democracy in

Halfdan Lynge: a kind of like a twenty first century?

Halfdan Lynge: Not necessarily.

Halfdan Lynge: You could imagine

Halfdan Lynge: other ways of

Halfdan Lynge: organizing citizens,

Halfdan Lynge: of aggregating their interest, of

Halfdan Lynge: channeling their interests into government and into decision making

Halfdan Lynge: in all kinds of ways that do not presuppose this kind of delegation of authority or representation.

Halfdan Lynge: But still we are hanging on to that. I mean, we're hanging on to elected representatives who then represent a constituency or

a group of people or class or whatever it might be,

Halfdan Lynge: but

Halfdan Lynge: that's not a

Halfdan Lynge: sort of the

Halfdan Lynge: only way you could imagine a democracy

Halfdan Lynge: working,

Halfdan Lynge: and yet that's what we have, because it worked very well. And then, okay, now maybe the representative is still sitting in

their district and they are attending

Halfdan Lynge: parliamentary hearings

Halfdan Lynge: online,

Halfdan Lynge: but the logic is still what it was set up for in, you know,

Halfdan Lynge: pre industrial times. Right?

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: Maybe we can ask also AI how to simplify the government.

Alessandro Oppo: And I was thinking maybe the same thing for law.

Alessandro Oppo: Interesting.

Halfdan Lynge: For law. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of

Halfdan Lynge: a lot of experiments with that having AI,

Halfdan Lynge: you know, map out laws and contradictions

Halfdan Lynge: and overlaps in legislation. And I think there's a lot of potential to be

Halfdan Lynge: reaped from doing that for sure.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of, let's say, open questions

Alessandro Oppo: that

Alessandro Oppo: maybe in the future we will have an answer.

Alessandro Oppo: And... Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: Do you have some

Alessandro Oppo: open questions? I don't know. Something you would like to

Alessandro Oppo: talk about or

Alessandro Oppo: some question in your mind.

Halfdan Lynge: No. I think... Listen. I I think I've already touched them. I mean, for me right now in my in my current

role, and and and I'm I'm

Halfdan Lynge: I think that for me, the fundamental question is how this

Halfdan Lynge: very rapid

Halfdan Lynge: growth or very rapid absorption of agentic AI and how quickly people are

Halfdan Lynge: integrating it into their daily lives and what it means

Halfdan Lynge: for government and for relations between

Halfdan Lynge: the state and citizens.

Halfdan Lynge: I think that's

Halfdan Lynge: I really think that is a fundamental

Halfdan Lynge: change

Halfdan Lynge: and it's and it's happening so fast that I'm I'm afraid that,

Halfdan Lynge: you know,

Halfdan Lynge: that our systems, our institutions, governments, etcetera, that we are not ready for it. It's happening quicker than we can respond

to.

Halfdan Lynge: And I'm a little bit concerned with

Halfdan Lynge: what the implication of

Halfdan Lynge: that will be.

Halfdan Lynge: So, those are really the questions that are on my mind right

Alessandro Oppo: now.

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: And...

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. I I mean,

Alessandro Oppo: I agree that they are, let's say, important open questions.

Alessandro Oppo: I don't have an answer, unfortunately.

Alessandro Oppo: And

Alessandro Oppo: and, yeah, if you have, I don't know, a sort of final message for all the people that are working

Alessandro Oppo: in the field or similar field, digital transformation,,

Alessandro Oppo: and GovTech.

Alessandro Oppo: And

Halfdan Lynge: Yeah. I think maybe, I mean, you you... I I I didn't think about it, but I... But your question about democracy

Halfdan Lynge: and...

Halfdan Lynge: Made me think that I hope some people out there are thinking about that. You know, what what

Halfdan Lynge: if

Halfdan Lynge: we

Halfdan Lynge: started with what we have today, how people

Halfdan Lynge: live their lives today, how people use technology today, and if we wanted to develop a

Halfdan Lynge: or conceptualize a new

Halfdan Lynge: democracy two point o that takes

Halfdan Lynge: at the starting point the reality of today, what would it look like? I hope there are people out there, maybe some

of your

Halfdan Lynge: guests that

Halfdan Lynge: are thinking about that because, yeah,

Halfdan Lynge: I

Halfdan Lynge: think I fear that this elastic is about to snap, and

Halfdan Lynge: shouldn't only think

Halfdan Lynge: about how we can

Halfdan Lynge: tweak the existing systems. I think also we need to think of

Halfdan Lynge: completely new systems that

Halfdan Lynge: yeah, that takes are a different starting point than

Halfdan Lynge: Europe

Halfdan Lynge: in the

Halfdan Lynge: pre nineteenth century or mid nineteenth century.

Halfdan Lynge: So that that... That's my final encouragement to to to you and perhaps some of your guests on the on the podcast.

Halfdan Lynge: And and and let let the rest of us know when you find the answer.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Maybe so to to be a little bit creative so that we can

Alessandro Oppo: experiment and

Alessandro Oppo: find new

Alessandro Oppo: possible ways,

Alessandro Oppo: democratic ways.

Alessandro Oppo: Yeah. Yeah.

Alessandro Oppo: Exactly. Thank you a lot, Arthur. Thank

Halfdan Lynge: you very much, Alessandro.

Halfdan Lynge: And, yeah, thanks for the conversation. I really enjoyed it. And

Alessandro Oppo: Thank you. All the best.