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For decades, weve been told that the smartest organizations are data-driven. The phrase carries moral weight. To be guided by data is to be serious, rational, modern. If youre not, youre seen as ideological or sentimental. In the workplace, quantification has become synonymous with credibility and competence. And yet, the more data we accumulate, the less certain we seem to be that we are making better decisions. Theres a paradox. Organizations are drowning in dashboards, KPIs, performance metrics, behavioral traces, biometric indicators, predictive scores, engagement rates, and AI-generated forecasts. We have more data than we know what to do with. We pretend that the mere presence of data guarantees clarity. It does not. Thats data hubristhe arrogant belief that because something can be measured, it can be mastered. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-169.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-11.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Laetitia@Work\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Women power the worlds productivity its time we talked more about it. Explore a woman-centered take on work, from hidden discrimination to cultural myths about aging and care. Dont miss the next issue subscribe to Laetitia@Work.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/laetitiaatwork.substack.com","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91472264,"imageMobileId":91472265,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The Illusion of Objectivity In executive meetings, a slide filled with graphs and percentages signals authority. Numbers appear to silence dissent and create the impression of neutrality. But behind every dataset lies a series of human decisions: what to measure, how to measure it, what to ignore, and how to interpret it. Metrics are never neutral; they are constructed within particular frameworks, assumptions, and interests. Too often, data is used not to inform decisions but to justify them after the fact. It lends post-hoc legitimacy to strategies already chosen, wrapping subjective choices in the language of objectivity. Take creative industries, for example, where algorithms supposedly predict success. Netflix built part of its reputation on data sophistication, claiming to understand viewers better than traditional studios ever could. Yet insiders have described how metrics shift, interpretations vary, and executives selectively highlight numbers that support their preferred projects. The result can be content engineered to be watchable but forgettableoptimized for fragmented attention rather than lasting cultural impact. Also, the problem is that data reflects the past. It captures what has already worked, not what might resonate tomorrow. It struggles to grasp the emerging mood of a societythe intangible zeitgeist that makes a story, product, or idea feel timely. Focusing on backward-looking indicators institutionalizes mediocrity. When Data Confirms What We Already Know The same pattern appears in corporate HR, where the rise of people analytics promised revolutionary insight into engagement and performance. Sensors track badge swipes, algorithms map collaboration networks, and predictive models estimate attrition risk. After enormous investment, companies often discover that good managers matter, that employees dislike micromanagement, and that people leave when they feel undervalued. These findings are hardly revolutionary. Some of the most celebrated data-driven insights simply confirm what experienced people already suspected. There is a widening gap between the sophistication of measurement tools and the banality of many of the conclusions they generate. In open, messy environments, organizations often produce vast quantities of noise and mistake it for knowledge. Healthcare offers another revealing example. Radiology once seemed perfectly suited for AI transformation: millions of standardized images and clear diagnostic categories. Early systems performed impressively on routine cases. However, real-world practice quickly exposed limitations. Radiology reports are filled with cautious phrasescannot rule out, clinical correlation recommendedthe product of decades of medico-legal prudence. Algorithms struggle with this ambiguity and may flag excessive urgencies because they cannot distinguish legal caution from genuine clinical risk. More fundamentally, medicine is defined by exceptions. AI may handle 90% of common cases effectively, but it is the rare and atypical cases that truly test expertise. A seasoned radiologist can reason through an unprecedented situation; an algorithm remains confined to its training data. Abundant historical data does not eliminate the variability of reality. The Blind Spots of Overconfidence One of the most dangerous effects of data hubris is overconfidence. When decisions are backed by numbers, leaders may lose caution. Digital traces capture clicks and transactions but not informal conversations. Not everything meaningful leaves a digital record, and dashboards rarely display their own blind spots. We face what we don’t know we don’t know. In his work on uncertainty, Vaughn Tan distinguishes between riskwhere probabilities are calculableand deeper forms of not-knowing where probabilities themselves are unknown. Treating all uncertainty as if it were calculable risk is a category error. Mathematics cannot resolve questions about emerging values and unprecedented events. The COVID-19 crisis illustrated this confusion vividly. Some leaders relied heavily on models built from previous diseases, assuming that all unknowns were simply risk variables awaiting calculation. In reality, many were genuine uncertainties that required experimentation, humility, and adaptive learning. From Data Mastery to Uncertainty Literacy Data hubris can also extend into one’s personal life through the quantified self movement. Wearables measure sleep cycles, heart rate variability, step counts, and glucose levels, promising unprecedented self-knowledge. But more information does not always mean better well-being. In medicine, excessive testing increases the risk of false positives, detecting anomalies that may never cause harm but may trigger anxiety and invasive follow-ups. Constant self-tracking can fuel obsession. Instead of asking whether we feel rested or hungry, we defer to numerical indicators, thus ignoring more intuitive signals (feeling hungry, rested . . .). None of this means we should reject data. Of course not. Data is invaluable. But it must sit within a broader understanding of how knowledge is actually producedthrough field observations, expert judgment, and lived experience. Data demands interpretation. It requires humility nd open conversations. What is missing here? What assumptions shaped these metrics? Who decided what to measureand why? In genuinely uncertain environments, small, reversible experiments often outperform grand predictive models. Instead of pretending to know, organizations can probe, learn, and adapt. Intuitionfar from being irrationalrepresents compressed experience accumulated over time. Above all, leaders must remain humble in the face of unknown unknowns. The most sophisticated analytics cannot absolve decision-makers of responsibility. As sensors multiply and AI systems proliferate, the temptation to equate measurement with mastery will only intensify. Beware of data hubris. Knowing that we do not fully know is the foundation of sound judgment in a world that remains irreducibly complex. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-169.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-11.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Laetitia@Work\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Women power the worlds productivity its time we talked more about it. Explore a woman-centered take on work, from hidden discrimination to cultural myths about aging and care. 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A culture of fear makes it easy to cloud our judgment For thousands of years, walking and horseback riding were the fundamental modes of transport, and settlement patterns were a direct reflection of transport options. Compact, low-rise villages and cities made sense based on how far people could reasonably travel on foot or by horse. This was true all the way up until the late 1800s. Then came an invention that let people travel incredible distances in seconds, entirely reshaping cities with dense population clusters. The technology was a sturdy box designed to transport multiple people at once, but often carried just one. I’m talking, of course, about the elevator. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Elevators transformed city planning in remarkable ways, long before automobiles sprawled life horizontally. Before elevators, buildings stayed squat because stairs limited height. Walking up two or three flights isn’t terrible. Carrying a briefcase up 10 flights of steep, dark stairs to the office is, pardon the pun, another story. It didnt take long for skylines to change following the invention of the elevator. Each early elevator had its own operator who mastered the timing and touch of hand-crank controls. These operators wore their Sunday best as a psychological reminder: “We will safely get you to your destination.” Brilliant minds innovated on the elevator, adding safety technology like automatic brakes, but it was the human touch that eased public nerves. It’s hard now to imagine feeling completely helpless in an elevator, but such was life in the early 20th century. Zero chance ordinary people like you and me were going to attempt to operate an elevator without rigorous training first. Full automation That changed dramatically with the September 1945 New York City elevator operators’ strike. Around 15,000 operators, doormen, porters, and maintenance workers walked off, halting service in over 2,000 buildings. About 1.5 million people avoided elevators, opting for stairs or staying home rather than risk operating the cars themselves. But self-service features like electric power, emergency phones, and push buttons were already spreading, so the strike helped open the doors to full automation. Self-driving elevators! You can practically hear the traveling public gasp. Walk into a box, let the doors close and lock you in, and trust that this thing would take you quicklybut not too quicklythe proper distance. Otis gets credit for installing the first fully automated elevator in 1950 in Dallas. But the transition took time, both for technology to improve and for a skeptical population to trust it. Operators were still employed in some cities 30 years later. Today, you can casually scan your hotel room key in a lobby that summons a box to whisk you to your precise destination without even pressing buttons inside. A public health crisis You and I will never have the time, energy, or need to read the thousands of opinion pieces about the dangers of autonomous technology as it relates to cars. And as robotaxis accelerate deployments in 2026, there will be no shortage of fear-based stories. There’s no scenario, with or without technology, that results in a danger-free life. The challenge for us is to identify and analyze trade-offs without being clouded by ideology or thwarted by lazy straw man arguments. I’m not a technology expert, so I don’t get too deep on what a particular shiny new object can or can’t do. I am a traffic safety expert, though, and I can tell you motor vehicle deaths remain a public health crisis. Every day, more than 100 people are killed in traffic crashes, and thousands more experience life-altering injuries. That’s the track record of human drivers for decades. Software can save lives by preventing people from driving too fast, running red lights, passing school buses, tailgating in bad weather, or committing other dangerous antisocial acts. If only 50 people are killed each day because of autonomous technology, isnt that worth celebrating? What if the technology could bring traffic fatalities down to nearly zero? It’s natural to be scared by emerging tech. Early elevator riders felt helpless stepping into a closing box with no operator to guide them. But people adapted because the status quo (stairs limiting how we could build and live) was worse, and incremental safety features built confidence over time. There are absolutely valid concerns about autonomous vehicles, like software hacking, or failure to recognize a one-way street. But remember that humans are not the safest operators, that our current state of mobility is a public health crisis killing tens of thousands every year. Autonomous vehicles programmed to operate safely are part of the quest to design for human flourishing. If we’ve entrusted machines to carry us sky-high without hesitation, we can approach transportation systems the same way: cautiously optimistic, evidence-driven, and open to progress that saves lives. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. 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This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. The Tennessee Valley Authoritys (TVA’s) quarterly meeting in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, opened with a triumphant video homage to its work during Winter Storm Fern. Energy had come through, yet again, to defeat extreme cold. The montage credited this to the utilitys coal workhorses, then noted that nuclear provided uninterrupted power and hydro responded instantly. The list ended there, despite years of promises that the agency would bolster renewables and battery storage. The message was clear: Solar had been unceremoniously dropped from the mix, and coal, which the agency had been phasing out, was back. What the video hinted at, the board made official. Its seven members unanimously dropped renewable energy as a priority, ended diversity programs, and granted two of the agencys four remaining coal plants a reprieve. The decision followed the seating of four members selected by President Trump, breaking months of paralysis that followed the termination of three Biden appointees. The changes, made during the February 11 board meeting, signal more than a routine policy reset for the nations largest public power provider. They will slow the TVAs shift away from fossil fuels just as electricity demand is spiking, raising questions about future costs, pollution, and the role of federally-owned utilities in the countrys energy transition. For years, TVA planners had mapped out a future without coal. That is now on hold. The Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, was scheduled for retirement in 2027, with all nine of its units slated for demolition and replacement with an energy complex of gas generation and battery storage. All of them will remain online alongside the gas plant, but renewables are no longer part of the picture. The board also shelved plans to scuttle the Cumberland Fossil Plant in Stewart County, Tennessee, in 2028. These moves come despite the agencys 2025 Integrated Resource Plan, which called for retiring the two facilities because of Kingstons high cost and challenged condition and Cumberlands lack of flexibility. The Kingston coal plant was also the site of a devastating 2010 coal ash disaster, the largest industrial spill in U.S. history. The board defended its decision by citing energy affordability for the Tennessee Valley. As power demand grows, TVA is looking at every option to bolster our generating fleet to continue providing affordable, reliable electricity to our 10 million customers, create jobs, and help communities thrive, agency spokesperson Scott Brooks said in a statement. Left unsaid was the fact that a coal-fired power generation unit at the Cumberland Fossil Plant failed during last months storm. Much of TVAs load growth comes from the rise of artificial intelligence, said CEO Don Moul, and data centers account for 18% of its industrial load. During the same meeting, the board allowed the company xAI, owned by Elon Musk, to double the amount of power it draws from the grid. For former board member Michelle Moore, one of the Biden-era appointees President Trump fired in March, the shift aligns squarely with the administrations priorities. It also signals, she said, that the utility is no longer fulfilling its mission to provide affordable power, economic development, and environmental stewardship across the seven-state Tennessee Valley. The politics in Washington may change, she said. But the TVAs mission does not. That independence has at times put the Tennessee Valley Authority at odds with presidents of both parties. The utility resisted Trump administration pressure to keep coal plants open, continuing to retire facilities based on economic reasons. But it also fell short of President Bidens decarbonization goals. Moore worries ordinary ratepayers are no longer an active part of TVAs decision-making. Typically, a shift as monumental as turning away from renewable energy would have been subject to a lengthy review with input from communities throughout the region, something that simply will not occur now. This is one more indicator that the public power model is being eroded and is at risk, Moore said. Last month, the TVA said it would streamline how it reviews the ecological impacts of its projects, allowing some to move ahead with far less, if any, scrutiny. The move follows a broader rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act under President Trump that grants greater discretion over such considerations to entities like the TVA. For nearly 60 years, the law required an assessment of the environmental impacts of federal projects. Over the past several years, the TVA board has faced pressure to make decisions based on stringent environmental regulations, said board member Wade White. The TVAs willingness to join the Trump administrations push to revive the coal industry has rankled locals and environmentalists. In the first year of his second term, President Trump lifted Environmental Protection Agency restrictions on the industry, used emergency executive orders to keep aging coal plants open, expanded mining, and ordered the Pentagon to buy electricity from power plants that use coal. The president has since received an award from industry executives dubbing him the Undisputed Champion of Clean, Beautiful Coal. From a public health standpoint, its a nightmare. Coal is one of the worst things you can imagine for the environment, said Avner Vengosh, a professor of environmental quality at Duke University who leads a coal and coal ash research group. Mining destroys ecosystems and poisons groundwater, polluting rivers and streams with sulfuric acid. Burning the fossil fuel releases fine particulate matter, impacting the health of nearby residents. A 2023 study in the journal Science found that coal plants caused nearly half a millon excess deaths between 1999 and 2020, and a Sierra Club report notes that TVA coal-fired plants were the nations deadliest. People are upset, they feel like were going backwards, said Amy Kelly, a Sierra Club campaign manager. The fact that these plants are from the ’50s and ’60s, and were just going to prop them up with Band-Aid solutions to appease the current administration is going to cost people. Even some coal plant operators agree. A Colorado utility is suing to close a facility, calling a federal emergency order to keep it online unconstitutional. For those who live near the two plants the TVA just saved, the decision is, in Joe Schillers words, a betrayal. Schiller, a retired college professor, has lived near the Cumberland plant for 30 years. It contradicts everything theyve told us about the plants in the past, he said. Even so, he added, its a beautiful area. Moments before, his wife had called him outside to admire the sandhill cranes flying by. Its not like you look around every day and say, Yep, that Cumberland plant is slowly killing me, Schiller said with a laugh. Although it probably is.
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