Why measuring things often makes them worse
This essay expands the diagnostic idea introduced in my recent Medium piece on AI and metric failure.
👉 When Chasing Numbers Makes Everything Worse
At some point, almost everyone notices this strange pattern:
Things start getting “better” on paper…
while feeling worse in real life.
Workplaces track more performance metrics, yet people burn out faster.
Schools raise test scores, yet students understand less.
Science publishes more papers, yet fewer results can be trusted.
AI models score higher, yet hallucinate with growing confidence.
This isn’t coincidence.
It has a name.
The Rule Nobody Escapes
Economists call it Goodhart’s Law, and it says something deceptively simple:
When a number becomes a goal, it stops telling the truth.
In plain language:
The moment people are rewarded for hitting a number, the number stops measuring what it was supposed to measure.
Not because people are evil.
Not because they’re cheating.
But because systems adapt.
A Simple Example Everyone Recognizes
Imagine a school that wants students to learn more.
So it tracks test scores.
At first, higher scores usually mean better learning.
The number works.
Then test scores become the goal:
- Teachers teach to the test
- Memorization replaces understanding
- Subjects that aren’t tested disappear
Test scores go up.
Learning goes down.
The number improves.
Reality breaks.
That’s Goodhart’s Law.
This Happens Everywhere (Not Just Schools)
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
- Hospitals optimize for patients per hour → care quality drops
- Companies optimize for quarterly profit → long-term stability erodes
- Science optimizes for publications → reproducibility collapses
- Social media optimizes for engagement → outrage dominates
- AI systems optimize for accuracy → hallucination increases
The pattern is always the same:
The number improves.
The thing the number was meant to represent gets worse.
Why This Keeps Happening
Here’s the uncomfortable part:
This doesn’t require bad actors.
It happens even when everyone is trying to do the right thing.
Why?
Because numbers are shortcuts.
They point toward reality — they are not reality.
A test score points toward learning.
It does not contain learning.
Revenue points toward value.
It does not guarantee value.
Accuracy points toward understanding.
It does not equal understanding.
The moment we treat the shortcut as the destination, we lose the destination.
The Deeper Problem We Rarely Name
What’s actually happening is something more subtle than “bad metrics.”
We’re confusing:
- How much with what is
- Measurement with completion
- Performance with integrity
We keep asking:
“How much did we get?”
when the real question is:
“Did the thing actually happen?”
Learning.
Trust.
Health.
Truth.
Understanding.
These aren’t quantities you can pile up forever.
They’re states you either reach or you don’t.
And no amount of counting can substitute for crossing that boundary.
Why “Just Better Metrics” Doesn’t Fix It
This is where many reform efforts fail.
When metrics start lying, we respond by:
- Adding more metrics
- Refining the metrics
- Making dashboards more detailed
But that often makes things worse.
Because the problem isn’t which number we chose.
It’s that we’re asking a number to do a job it cannot do.
No metric can guarantee:
- Understanding
- Trust
- Meaning
- Integrity
Those require judgment.
Boundaries.
Stopping points.
They require someone to say:
“This number can’t answer this question.”
A 60-Second Reality Check (Try This)
You can spot this failure mode anywhere with three questions:
- What number is being optimized?
- What real outcome is that number supposed to represent?
- Could the number increase while the outcome gets worse?
If the answer to #3 is “yes,”
the system is already in trouble.
That doesn’t mean abandon measurement.
It means stop letting the number make decisions for you.
Why This Matters Now
We live in the most measured society in history.
Everything is tracked.
Ranked.
Scored.
Optimized.
And yet, trust is collapsing.
Institutions feel hollow.
AI systems feel confident but wrong.
People feel exhausted despite “progress.”
This isn’t because measurement is evil.
It’s because we forgot its limits.
The Quiet Fix Nobody Talks About
The solution isn’t fewer numbers.
It’s knowing when numbers must step aside.
Numbers are tools.
They are not judges.
They help us navigate —
but they cannot decide when we’ve arrived.
The moment we remember that,
numbers start telling the truth again.
And when we don’t…
they quietly lead us off a cliff, smiling the whole way down.