At one level, “what I prefer” is information—it’s a sample of one but still the most detailed insight in a human mind I’ll ever have. In that sense, my preferences feed, together with other inputs, in an algorithm that outputs predictions and recommended actions.
But at a higher level, “what I prefer” is also the stuff that the algorithm itself is made of. Because ultimately everything always comes from me. Even if it’s something that I’m trying my very best to gather as empirical evidence from the world around me, it’s filtered by me. If I am King Solomon and must do the good thing when two women claim to be mothers of the same baby, I still need to have some way to judge and be convinced of which woman is lying and which is telling the truth. And whatever my process is, it may be inferred from my past experience, but still filtered through my own judgement, etcetera. Just like with scientific and empirical matters—I can try to update my beliefs to best approximate some ideal truth, but I can never state with 100% certainty that I have reached it.
At one level, “what I prefer” is information—it’s a sample of one but still the most detailed insight in a human mind I’ll ever have. In that sense, my preferences feed, together with other inputs, in an algorithm that outputs predictions and recommended actions.
But at a higher level, “what I prefer” is also the stuff that the algorithm itself is made of. Because ultimately everything always comes from me. Even if it’s something that I’m trying my very best to gather as empirical evidence from the world around me, it’s filtered by me. If I am King Solomon and must do the good thing when two women claim to be mothers of the same baby, I still need to have some way to judge and be convinced of which woman is lying and which is telling the truth. And whatever my process is, it may be inferred from my past experience, but still filtered through my own judgement, etcetera. Just like with scientific and empirical matters—I can try to update my beliefs to best approximate some ideal truth, but I can never state with 100% certainty that I have reached it.