Dating apps exploit you, dating profiles lie to you, and sex is basically something old people used to do. You might as well consider it: can AI help you find love?
For a handful of tech entrepreneurs and a few brave Londoners, the answer is “maybe”.
No, this is not a story about humans falling in love with sexy computer voices – and strictly speaking, AI dating of some variety has been around for a while. Most big platforms have integrated machine learning and some AI features into their offerings over the past few years.
But dreams of a robot-powered future – or perhaps just general dating malaise and a mounting loneliness crisis – have fuelled a new crop of startups that aim to use the possibilities of the technology differently.
Jasmine, 28, was single for three years when she downloaded the AI-powered dating app Fate. With popular dating apps such as Hinge and Tinder, things were “repetitive”, she said: the same conversations over and over.
“I thought, why not sign up, try something different? It sounded quite cool using, you know, agentic AI, which is where the world is going now, isn’t it?”
Is there anything we can’t outsource?
So if you’re a woman in your mid-20s, single, and ostensibly, reasonably good looking, AI can find you a soul mate? Maybe. I mean, you probably give it a lot of information on your preferences and it knows a bit about all the male suitors you ostensibly seek. So there are like ten (or more!) times as many men on these platforms.
What it almost certainly can’t do is, do the same for a man who is below average. It’s just a numbers game at that point. If there are ten men for every woman, then you need to be in the 10% of the best men that women seek, otherwise you don’t have a mathematical shot at finding a mate. If you advertise that AI will find you a soulmate, maybe you increase the female membership and you give more men a chance, but it’s still a gamble and most men will still be left without.
Now if it had profiles on all available consenting adults in the world, maybe? But that would be super invasive. And if it told you accurately (as in, with 100% confidence) that your soul mate is out there but they live in another country, and there’s a 100% chance they will be right for you… do you take the trip? Or deprive two people (you and this other person) of finding their perfect mate?
I have thoughts on this, but your mileage will definitely vary.
I met my first wife on OKCupid in 2004. We were something like a 97% match. And, indeed, we shared politics, musical tastes, geeky senses of humour … it felt like the algorithm had done its job. We got married in 2007. We got divorced in 2010.
But before meeting her, there was another one. Just weeks earlier. She shot me down, and I accepted that.
Without realizing I was attempting to connect with the same woman for a second time, I reached out to her new profile. She’s the sort of manic-pixie alt type that has no problems finding guys. And I am decidedly average in looks. She was a 34% match.
And yet … I didn’t wake up in my first wife’s bed last month.
I personally believe in soulmates, but I don’t think the concept is usually construed correctly. It’s not how it’s popularly portrayed; rather, it’s a matter of feeling incomplete without that body against you. I’m not sure my life has been improved by that knowledge.