Is Time Ripe for an Ethic of Quantification?

Abstract

Looking at present-day technoscience, where utopian ambitions and dystopian fears confront one another, quantification plays a fundamental role. Artificial intelligence, big data, statistical, mathematical, and metrical objects share important promises, as well as important pathologies. From finance to education, from the economy to the environment, we increasingly use numbers and algorithms to increase efficiency and profit, measure the speed of achieving objectives, to classify and decide. Without an awareness of this multidimensional phenomenon, no answer is possible. A critical movement is needed, to control a sociotechnical imaginary for which technology provides the solution to the problems created by technology. Is time ripe for an ethics of quantification?

Keywords: sociology of quantification, ethics of quantification, metrics, rating, algorithms, statistical modelling, mathematical modelling, algorithms

JEL Classification: C18, O32, O33