Could you explain what you mean re: empathy? Maybe it's the worst if the end goal is maximizing one's own well being with no regard for others. But if your moral theory says the neighbor's well-being is just as important as your own, then empathy plays a large part in helping choose correctly.
But where exactly is the "fudging" happening?
This sounds pretty straightforward. Even if the methods involve "fudging" and "throwing random crap at the wall", what matters in the end is the accuracy of the results, as long as there's no human-in-the-middle tweaking anything during each prediction.