Is the word "recommend" the word I'm looking for?

Question

I am trying to figure out if the word recommend is the word I am actually looking for.

Background

I am trying to decide whether determine if an algorithm I am writing is a Recommender System or something else. In my case my algorithm learns from the history of the user and picks (this is important as the user does not pick, the algorithm forcefully picks) a certain strategy after that history. This is why I'm thinking the term recommend is wrong as the user does not have a chance to choose.

The algorithm spits out a list of things and it's probability of it being in the users favor.

option A 0.32
option B 0.1121
option C 0.054
etc.

So I guess it does recommend the list in this order, but then I choose the top option A always as.

So I think of my system in two ways.

• It IS a Recommender System, just that I choose the option with the largest probability.

• Well, it is NOT, it is something else.

Meaning

Meanings of the word from top results on Google:

put forward (someone or something) with approval as being suitable for a particular purpose or role.

to say that (someone or something) is good and deserves to be chosen

to present as worthy of confidence, acceptance, use, etc.; commend; mention favorably:

Also the issue I have with the word is that the meaning of recommend to me is normally used when an object is being recommended is not very known to the party in which the recommendation is being directed at.

I am trying to find a word in which the party already knows of it.

Other words

If there are any other words which can be suitable by all means please tell me. In the Computer Science arena the following terms pop up when in the context of learning from the user and doing something with that data:

Personalization Context-awareness Adaptive personalization

Answer 1

I would naively call it a 'Recommendation Heuristic" because it is using a ruleset to make an educated guess with existing data (data which is growing over time) the aim being to make a satisfactory solution (optimal being out of reach because of incomplete data) - It is a heuristic that generates recommendations!

Answer 2

Whenever you're talking about naming an algorithm, I think the more detail you can provide the better. Ultimately, the quality of the name will depend on how natural the analogy translates from a familiar "real-world" concept to the "binary"/"digital" concept you're inventing within your application domain.

Given your description, I would call the portion of the software that produces the recommendations (i.e. options A, B, C, and their corresponding ratings) something akin to "Recommendation Engine/System/Service".

As for the portion that drives the user through the application based on those recommendations, a lot of that will depend on the application domain itself. Whatever most closely matches "making choices on behalf of the user to drive/steer/direct/etc. them through the application". Some things that come to mind for that "decider" element:

1. Routing System
2. Navigator System
3. Autopilot System
4. Ideation Engine