Concept · Seed idea · last reconsidered August 17, 2026
Proxy
A measurable stand-in adopted to track a goal that is itself hard to observe directly.
- Territories
- Appearances
Source
A proxy, in measurement contexts, is an observable variable used as a stand-in for a target variable that cannot be measured directly.
Interpretation
This project is interested in the drift by which a proxy, adopted because the real goal was hard to observe, ends up being optimized in place of the goal it was meant to track.
Caution
Proxies are often necessary and not inherently misleading; the failure mode of interest is specifically the substitution of proxy for goal, not the use of proxies as such.
Connected ideas
is questioned by
related to
- A measure that becomes a target stops measuringClaim
It describes the failure mode of a proxy.
- Feedback loopConcept
A proxy that stops being checked against reality breaks the feedback loop it was meant to serve.
Continue exploring
- QuestionWhat happens when proxies become goals?A question about what follows once a measure adopted to track a goal starts being optimized in its own right.
- ClaimA measure that becomes a target stops measuringThe sentence usually attributed to Goodhart, in the form Strathern actually wrote it.
- ConceptFeedback loopA cycle in which a system's output influences its own future input.