utility function

noun

1. a function relating specific goods and services in an economy to individual preferences

Example Sentences

“My doctoral advisor gave me a great piece of advice: Know your own utility function,” Lamberton says, referencing an economic term for the satisfaction you gain from a certain product.

From Seattle Times

Though AI has the ability to pursue and improve a designated “utility function”, something that it can be programmed to pursue, it is incapable of pursuing a “values function” and therefore understanding human values.

From Salon

“Regret theory models choice under uncertainty taking into account the effect of anticipated regret. … It incorporates a regret term in the utility function which depends negatively on the realized outcome and positively on the best alternative outcome given the uncertainty resolution.”

From Seattle Times

The court said streetlights were a general-government rather than a utility function and said City Light was imposing an illegal and unconstitutional tax on ratepayers.

From Seattle Times

If the utility function of artificial intelligence is to maximise happiness of humans, a super-intelligent AI might decide that the best way to do that is to capture all humans and inject their brains with dopamine and serotonin.

From The Guardian