This is an interesting��observation, but it strikes me as somewhat...... subjective

I am sorry I��could not attend��Yaakov's talk, and I am curious if he presented any evidence��

(data) to support this assertion,��because I think��this is, ultimately, an empirical question.

Is there evidence that, everything��else being equal, people tend to:

(a) take estimates and advice more / less seriously��

(b) follow��advice more / less frequently

(c) are willing to pay more / less for estimates and advice

(d) express different��levels of trust in estimates / advice��

(e) etc.

when the estimates��/ advice are presented with different��labels (subjective / objective/ personal /

judgmental / expert based / etc.)?

There is a,��somewhat��related, literature on��the way people treat advice from humans / algorithms.

The empirical evidence is mixed:��

(a) Some��people��report, what was smartly labeled, Algorithm Aversion; others report Algorithm Appreciation.��

(b) The attitudes may vary across domains (prefer algorithms for macroeconomic forecasts and human sources

for political forecasts)��

justification��(empirical / epistemic / experience) for the estimates to be credible (which involves some subjectivity on the recipient's��end)

��

I suspect that similar considerations would apply in this case as well��

David V. Budescu

Psychology, Fordham University

Editor of�� DECISION

441 E Fordham Road, Bronx NY 10458

Tel: (718) 817 3786 ��Mobile: (217) 840 1586 Fax: (718) 817 3785

Skype: dbudescu

On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 3:53 PM Kreinovich, Vladik <vladik@utep.edu> wrote:

Dear Friends,

��

We often talk and write about objective and subjective probabilities, about objective and subjective measures of uncertainty. However, at a recent conference on uncertainty, Yakov Ben-Haim made an important observation -- based on his experience of working on applications with colleagues from many different areas.

��

His experience is that in many application areas, the word ��subjective�� has a negative connotation: it means unjustified estimates based on gut feeling only, prone to bias and wild variations.

��

Such gut-feeling-based estimations sometimes happen, but mostly, when we talk about ��subjective��, we mean judgmental estimates, estimates which are not just coming out of gut feeling, but which can be usually provided with some justification. For example, if we estimate to what extent someone is young (one of Zadeh��s original examples) we can usually explain the degree we assign to ��youngness�� of an individual by referring to features which are present and which are typical young age �� and features of this individual which are more typical for mature-age folks.

��

For example, subjective probability often means simply probability that is not coming from the analysis of frequency, but from expert estimates.

��

Yakov��s recommendations is to use words like ��judgmental�� (or ��expert-based��) instead of ��subjective�� in such situations, especially when working on applications �� and applications are the main goal of uncertainty studies in the first place.

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