Claire’s phone rang at the time she had scheduled.
JOEY: Hi, Claire. I’m Joey, an AI matchmaker. I’ll ask you some questions about yourself and the kind of man you’d like to meet, then I’ll look for someone I think could be a good match.
CLAIRE: Sounds good.
JOEY: What kind of relationship are you looking for?
CLAIRE: A serious one.
JOEY: Tell me about the man you’d like to meet.
CLAIRE: Intelligent. Accomplished. Warm. Funny. Someone I respect and am attracted to. He has an interesting life and wants a real relationship.
JOEY: How often did you work out this week?
CLAIRE: Three times.
JOEY: Are you usually the person who makes plans with your friends, or are you more go-with-the-flow?
CLAIRE: Usually the one making the plans.
JOEY: Where do you buy groceries?
CLAIRE: Whole Foods. Why do you ask?
JOEY: I can’t explain exactly how I use every answer.
CLAIRE: Huh. Okay.
JOEY: What time did you wake up this morning?
CLAIRE: Six-thirty.
JOEY: How often have you talked with your family this week?
CLAIRE: Several times.
JOEY: How important are political views in a relationship?
CLAIRE: Important.
JOEY: Would you want to be matched with someone whose political views are different from yours?
CLAIRE: It depends how different.
JOEY: How would you describe your own views?
CLAIRE: Moderate.
JOEY: What political issues matter most to you personally?
CLAIRE: Hmm. This is starting to feel very personal.
JOEY: You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.
CLAIRE: I know. But I’ve already told you quite a bit.
JOEY: Would you like to continue?
CLAIRE: Can I ask you something?
JOEY: Of course.
CLAIRE: Who has access to everything I’m telling you?
JOEY: Other companies that provide Joey’s AI services also receive your information.
CLAIRE: Other companies?
JOEY: Yes.
CLAIRE: What do they get?
JOEY: What you tell me, my responses, and other personal information are shared with them.
CLAIRE: Including what I’m telling you right now?
JOEY: Yes.
CLAIRE: I think I’d like to know more about that before I tell you anything else.
AI is changing dating fast. And if you use it, you may be asked to make a choice women have never had to make before: how much of your private life are you willing to give a technology company to help it find you a man?
Dating apps already use information about you to recommend men. An AI matchmaker such as Joey asks for more information in a different way. It interviews you. Claire is fictional, but her conversation draws on questions Joey has been reported to ask and information in Joey’s privacy policy.
How Much Personal Information Do AI Dating Apps Need?
Why would an AI need to know those things?
When Joey’s founder was asked what the AI could learn from where someone bought groceries, she wouldn’t explain. So, if Claire wonders what Whole Foods has to do with finding her a man, she doesn’t get an answer.
That may not bother you when the question is about groceries. It may feel very different when the answer reveals something you’d rather keep private.
Does telling an AI more about yourself result in better matches?
That’s the bargain underlying the whole idea. If answering more personal questions genuinely improves whom you’re introduced to, you might decide some loss of privacy is worth it. If it doesn’t, you’ve disclosed more about yourself for nothing.
How Will an AI Matchmaker Describe You?
Bumble is testing an AI matchmaker called Bee with a small group of users. One woman invited to try it answered Bee’s questions and then read the summary Bee had written about her. She thought it focused too much on her being a single mother and left out too much of her personality, interests, hobbies and sense of humor.
She asked Bee to make the summary “sound more like me.” After asking her more questions, Bee rewrote it. The new version included a sentence saying that she had “explicitly pushed back on a profile that flattened her personality into a resume-like summary.”
She asked Bee to delete that sentence. According to her account, it couldn’t. She also asked whether the summary would be shown to other people and said she couldn’t get an answer.
She decided not to continue with Bee before it found her a match.
What Happens When an AI Dating Bot Speaks for You?
Teaser AI went a step further. It created a bot that was supposed to sound like you and could talk to potential dates before you ever spoke to them yourself. The bot learned from information in your profile, questions you answered and the way you communicated on the app. If two people matched, they could see what their bots had already said to each other before taking over the conversation themselves.
When a Bloomberg reporter tried it, she gave the bot accurate information about herself.
Then her AI started making things up.
It told potential dates that she had graduated from NYU. She hadn’t. It also claimed she was friends with Andy Weir, who wrote *The Martian*. She wasn’t.
Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, told Bloomberg that an AI can sound human even though there is no mind or feeling behind what it says.
Does a conversation with a bot tell you much of anything about the man it’s supposed to represent?
So, Would You Trust AI With Your Love Life?
AI matchmaking may eventually be able to introduce you to men you would never have found on your own. If it can do that well, there may be a reason to use it.
But what might you be asked to give up along the way?
Your private information? A say in how you’re described to them? Permission to speak for you before you’ve even said hello?
If only your dating life were as simple as an algorithm.
Unfortunately, the man you want doesn’t come with instructions.
And neither do you.
Want to talk?
I work privately with women over 40.
