Preferences: Specification, Inference, Applications

"Preference" is a fundamental notion in those areas of computer science, applied mathematics and philosophy that deal with decisions and choice. In Mathematical Decision Theory, preferences (often expressed as utilities) are used to model people's economic behavior. In Artificial Intelligence, preferences help to capture agents' goals. In Databases, preferences help in reducing the amount of information returned in response to user queries. In Philosophy, preferences are used to reason about values, desires, and duties. Surprisingly, there has been so far very little interaction between those areas. The difference in foci, as well as variations in terminology, make the results obtained in one area difficult to use in another.

This Dagstuhl seminar gathered researchers from many areas involving preferences (in particular databases, AI, mathematics, decision science, philosophy) in order to stimulate more specialized research in those areas and identify possible directions for collaboration. The following topics where covered during the seminar week.