Yeah, I think the points about elicitation methods and about the influence of irrelevant alternatives are important, and I don’t really have a great answer/solution. But I can say that this sounds quite related to some problems Stuart Armstrong has posted about in quite a few places, and that he seems to have some useful ideas for. E.g. in the “”Reasonable” situations” section of this post.
Charlie Steiner, right, it’s not doable for, say, all products on (or could be on) the market, but it is certainly doable among the products in a person’s consideration set. If we posit that they would make a choice among 4, then eliciting binary preferences might—but also might not—faithfully reflect how preferences look in the 4 set. So to MichaelA’s point, if preferences are context-dependent, then you need to identify appropriate contexts, or reasonable situations.
Context-dependent preferences present a big problem because “true” context-less preferences...maybe don’t exist. At the very least, we can make sure we’re eliciting preferences in an ecologically-valid way.
Binary choices are useful, but when they lead to inconsistencies, one should wonder whether it’s because preferences are inconsistent or whether it’s an elicitation thing. If people really would choose between A and B and not consider C or D, then ranking A and B is the relevant question. If people would consider A, B, C, and D (or at least pick between A and B in the context of C and D) then ranking all four (or at least ranking A and B in the context of C and D) is the relevant question.
Yeah, I think the points about elicitation methods and about the influence of irrelevant alternatives are important, and I don’t really have a great answer/solution. But I can say that this sounds quite related to some problems Stuart Armstrong has posted about in quite a few places, and that he seems to have some useful ideas for. E.g. in the “”Reasonable” situations” section of this post.
Charlie Steiner, right, it’s not doable for, say, all products on (or could be on) the market, but it is certainly doable among the products in a person’s consideration set. If we posit that they would make a choice among 4, then eliciting binary preferences might—but also might not—faithfully reflect how preferences look in the 4 set. So to MichaelA’s point, if preferences are context-dependent, then you need to identify appropriate contexts, or reasonable situations.
Context-dependent preferences present a big problem because “true” context-less preferences...maybe don’t exist. At the very least, we can make sure we’re eliciting preferences in an ecologically-valid way.
Binary choices are useful, but when they lead to inconsistencies, one should wonder whether it’s because preferences are inconsistent or whether it’s an elicitation thing. If people really would choose between A and B and not consider C or D, then ranking A and B is the relevant question. If people would consider A, B, C, and D (or at least pick between A and B in the context of C and D) then ranking all four (or at least ranking A and B in the context of C and D) is the relevant question.