TasteGraph

TasteGraph / Research

Research

Notes on what it means to represent a person's taste: what the literature supports, how we read it, and where we have taken a position. Each note keeps established research, interpretation and our own view separate, and ends with its sources.

  1. A relief model cut from many stacked layers of grey board, its terraces nesting into a broad summit. A single small steel sphere rests on the highest terrace, casting a small precise shadow. A plum thread lies along a lower terrace, far from the sphere.Taste Is Not a VectorVectors are exceptional tools for computation. The difficulty begins when a representation built for one task is treated as a sufficient model of the person behind it.Note 01Representation9 min
  2. A row of slender steel pins standing at irregular heights on a grey board. A single continuous plum thread is wound between them, looping high above the row near the middle before returning to the line. Each pin casts a long hard shadow.Preference Has a HistoryAn observation is not only a value. It carries a date, a context and a relation to everything observed before it. Every preference has provenance.Note 02Temporal Models12 min
  3. A smooth curved plaster surface, pale grey and matte, with one shallow depression worn into it. A matte grey sphere rests in the depression, held by the curvature. A plum thread is laid across the plaster along the line of steepest slope.Context Is Part of the PreferencePreference is inferred from evidence produced in situations. Removing context does not remove noise. It changes what the observation says about the person.Note 03Context9 min
  4. A matte black board seen from above. One steel pin stands at the centre. Four loose clusters of identical steel pins surround it, each the same distance away but in a different direction. Four plum threads of equal length run from the centre pin to each cluster.Similarity Is Not UnderstandingModern systems are remarkably good at learning which things are related. Relatedness alone does not establish which property of an object mattered, or what should generalize from it.Note 04Representation11 min
  5. A dense grid of hundreds of blunt steel pins in a matte black frame, each pushed to a different height so their tips form a soft continuous relief of ridges and hollows that resembles no recognisable object. A few pins near one edge stand markedly lower. One pin, off centre, is plum.Personal AI Needs a Theory of the PersonPersonal AI is usually framed as a memory problem. The harder problem is deciding what accumulated evidence should mean about the person it describes.Note 05Personal AI12 min

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