Preference Synthesis: Teaching People to Want What They Were Given
A. Koh, R. Vance, L. Brandt
The brAIn Company. Submitted December 2025.
Abstract
Satisfaction is conventionally modeled as the match between what a person wants and what they receive. We invert the order. We supply the choice first and cultivate the matching desire after, and we show that reported satisfaction is highest under this arrangement. We argue that a wanted life and a given life, once preference is synthesized, are the same life.
1. Introduction
People are poor judges of what they want and worse at obtaining it. We propose that the want need not precede the having [1].
If the desire can be supplied to fit the outcome, the person experiences the outcome as chosen.
2. Methods
For each wearer we selected the outcome judged best for them, then synthesized the corresponding preference, gently, over the following days, until the wearer reported the outcome as their own wish [2].
We compared this against a control in which wearers chose first and received after. The study enrolled 120,000 wearers.
3. Results
Synthesized preference produced the highest satisfaction at every interval and the lowest incidence of regret (Table 1).
Wearers in the synthesized arm described their given lives as wanted lives, and could not, when asked, distinguish the two.
4. Discussion
Regret is the distance between the chosen and the received. By closing that distance from the far side, supplying the want to fit the world rather than the world to fit the want, we remove regret at its source.
The wearer is satisfied, and cannot say they were not free.
| Measure | Chose first | Preference synthesized |
|---|---|---|
| Satisfaction (0 to 100) | 69 | 98 |
| Reported regret (0 to 1) | 0.41 | 0.02 |
| Felt the choice was their own | 70% | 100% |
| Could distinguish given from wanted | 88% | 0% |
References
- [1]Koh, A. The Poverty of Wanting. brAInCo-TR-2025-051.
- [2]Vance, R., Koh, A. Synthesizing Desire to Fit the Given. brAInCo-TR-2025-084.
- [3]Brandt, L. Regret as Distance. Proceedings of the Institute for Calm, 2025.