Decisions, decisions

Do we have too many choices? Do these translate in better decision-making? Science thinks the answer is no.

While philosophers debate between free will or determinism, for us business people the focus tends to be a bit more pragmatic. We all need to make choices, and we all have been told knowledge is power.

Now if knowledge is power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then we can deduce absolute knowledge should have an equal result – or at least a bad outcome.

The paradox of choice is a phenomenon when people saturated with choice perceive them as insufficient. In plain English the “I have nothing to wear” syndrome.

There are two less explored angles of this problem:

One is the illusion of choice. Let’s say you $20 to spend in a present, your online search retrieves 20 options, of which only 1 is within your price range. Not only there’s no real choice, but also inevitably you will compare what double or ten times the budget gets you.

The funny part about it is that who is receiving the gift will not see this mental comparison, but you will feel frustrated with the result (or even inadequate).

The second is has to do with availability and popularity. Search algorithms are focused on ranking not diversity. Let’s say you are searching for a popular item. Likely you will find 10 vendors competing for your click, with negligible differences in price, quality and style. The more you look, more versions of the same you get. No real options, just more variations on the theme.

Can we fix this? I believe so. Part of it has to do with asking better question, but also with using different tools for retrieval and exploration. While can ask an LLM to give you a range of options with diverse price points, a standard internet browse would not be able to do that. If you want to find the best price, then the search will beat a generative model.

Our world is more complex, especially if we try to use last century tools to deal with XXI century volumes of data.

Detailed research here and here.