Optimized Measurement - The Brussels Philosophy Meetup

The world and its mechanisms are getting more and more known to us. Or are they? In a few years, algorithms and new digital bureacracies will know us better than we do. Or will they? What are the limits and the dangers of measuring and optimizing everything? Our sleep, our diet, our economy, our free time, the amount of words our children can read, the tokens per second of our LLMs, ... why is measuring so attractive to us?

When it comes to ethics, utilitarianism has an advantage compared to deontology in that it doesn’t rely on subjectively defined categories but instead is built on objective amounts of suffering and wellbeing. But how do we measure these? Is measurement inherently flawed or do we just need more (accurate) measurements? And if we accept that there is a limit to the accuracy of our measurements, are bad/imperfect measurements better or worse than no measurements?

In addition, how do we make sure to not optimize for the wrong things after measuring them? If we for example strive to raise median income as a proxy for happiness, are we at risk of conflating the map and the territory? Did the creators of social media make a critical mistake when deciding on "user engagement" as the metric to optimize or is this the only/best way to optimize things that are hard to measure?

Come and join this inclusive group-reflection to get a bit closer to living a good life (how much closer? I don't know!) - and try to arrive (exactly or around) 15 min. before the start of the meetup so you can get a drink before we start :)

Image: Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci (with banana for scale)