The Role of Quantification in the Political Theory of Technical Governance

Quantification is an important tool for technical governance, and has flourished with the increasing adoption of technical governance in contemporary society. The relationship between quantification and society is deeply co-constructed: quantification enables top-down governmentality through knowledge-power structures while simultaneously being shaped by cultural, political, and institutional contexts. With deeper quantification of our society in recent years, such analysis assumes more significance, particularly in the domain of AI governance, where the quantification of human language and reasoning lies at the heart of technologies such as large language models (LLMs).