Abduction in Real World Navigation. The Issue of Proxies in Recommender Systems

In this chapter, I investigate how recommender systems intervene in real-world navigation, highlighting the role of proxies in the design of these systems, while also considering the limitations of the deductive and inductive reasoning that defines their operations. Real-world navigation by human agents is based, instead, on creative abduction and direct interaction with the physical and institutional dimensions of their environment. In this contribution, I explain that as the output of recommender systems is meant to increase sales or ad revenue, this being the priority of those who pay for them, we should not be surprised if the algorithm optimises for lucrative preferences and thus co-produces the preferences that are mined. This relates to the well-known problems of feedback loops, filter bubbles and echo chambers and raises the question of whether recommender systems do what they are claimed to do, taking into account the often-perverse economic incentive structures that impact relevant design decisions. Finally, I address the key role that the EU legal framework may come to play in reconfiguring the economic incentives that drive the design of these systems, allowing for recommender systems that enable or enhance our human agency, designing for creative abduction instead of restricting or replacing it.