Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the paradox that projects to increase predictability and accountability reduce ontological multiplicity, while in the long run this reduction raises the risk to become locked in one version of reality that might turn out to be erroneous and have radically unpredictable consequences.

Paper long abstract:

This analytical and conceptual paper addresses the paradox that projects to increase predictability and accountability reduce ontological multiplicity, while in the long run this reduction raises the risk to become locked in one version of reality that might turn out to be erroneous and have radically unpredictable consequences. The paper starts from the assumption that although the future cannot be predicted, it can be designed to become as predictable as possible. It inquires into the ways this anticipatory endeavor implicates accountability in human affairs. It asks in what way these anticipatory projects implicate a specific notion of the individual human being and of entities with agency (like organizations) constructed around regularity, reliability and accountability for their own actions. It looks into the onto-epistemological and political effects some established and globally circulating techno-scientific and juridico-political protocols of evidence-making have on emerging futures and the making of accountable entities.