CONCEPT
The Evaluative Space Problem
Sen's name for the dimension in which assessment is conducted — the units, the currency, the metric — and the central methodological insight that what you measure determines what you optimize and what you miss.
The evaluative space is the dimension in which an assessment is conducted — the units, the currency, the metric by which progress or regress is measured. Sen's central methodological insight is that the choice of evaluative space determines what is visible and what is invisible in any welfare assessment. Choose income, and a society in which average income rises has progressed even if distribution worsens. Choose utility, and adaptive preferences can mask deprivation. Choose output, and AI's power can be celebrated while its effects on human freedom go unmeasured. The evaluative space problem is the analytical engine behind Sen's call for migration from output-based to capability-based evaluation of technology.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Sen's insight operates at a depth that most methodological debates miss. Arguments about which metric is best — GDP versus HDI, user satisfaction versus capability, output versus outcome — are typically framed as technical disputes about measurement precision. Sen's argument