If you have ever tried using an online dating service like Tinder or OkCupid, you have probably noticed that these services aren’t that great, mostly due to the fact that you are flooded with too many options. In the future, sophisticated AI will help us find love by analyzing our character, preferences and genes and matching the optimized partner. This future is going to be much earlier than you might think.
The quest for love
They say it was pretty easy to find love in the past. It probably has to do with the fact that people didn’t have many options back then – a potential spouse in your village who looks fertile was basically enough. If he had all his teeth on, it was a bonus. After all, the average life expectancy up to 100 years ago was less than 30. Nobody had time to be too picky.
The 20th century brought with it a number of social changes that has a huge impact on the search of love: life expectancy has more than doubled, women fertility period has become much longer, and the urbanization process gained momentum, which means more people have left the small villages and went to the big cities.
If that’s not enough, Hollywood romantic comedies had conquered the world and convinced everyone that true love is just around the corner. With all the variety of possibilities and the dramatic significance of finding “the right one”, the quest for love has become a challenge.
The age of online dating
In the mid-90s it was time for online dating sites: from match.com in 1995, eHarmony in 2000, and OkCupid in 2004. The concept of dating site is really simple: set your preferences, get results and send messages to anyone you like. In 2012, came Tinder that took the simplicity even one step further: get pictures of potential match and just swipe right to the one you like and swipe left to the one you don't like.
Initially, online dating was considered a niche for geeks, but pretty quickly it became quite popular. Recent study has shown that while in 1995 only about 2% of heterosexual couples met online, in 2017 the number reached almost 40% (when it comes to same-sex couples, that’s 60%). Another study has shown that more than a third of new marriages start online.
With the success, also comes money: the global online dating services market was estimated at $6.4 billion in 2017 and expected to reach $9.2 billion by 2025. The leading player in the online dating industry is Match Group: an American internet company that owns and operates a number of online dating websites, including OkCupid, PlentyOfFish, Tinder, Hinge and Match.com. Match Group revenue in 2018 was $1.7 billion.
It's still hard to find love
Anyone who tried to use an online dating site probably found out that while these services seem very promising at first, in reality they are not that great. Starting with the fact that online dating still has a bad reputation: in 2015 23% of Americans stated that they believe that "people who use online dating sites are desperate”. Well, nobody wants to be considered "desperate".
If that is not enough, the fact is that can't trust what you see in the web. A study from 2016 has shown that more than half of U.S. online dating users are lying on their profile about their height, weight or job, and over 20% of women have posted photos of their younger selves.
However, the main problem with online dating services is the seemingly huge variety they offer: there are so many potential options and the users are flooded. It seems like with all these options, finding the right one has become even too challenging.
The AI dating trend
Sean Rad is Tinder’s co-founder and chairman of Swipe Ventures – Tinder’s M&A (mergers and acquisitions) venture. At the Startup Grind Conference 2017, he revealed his vision for the future of the online dating industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI).
According to Rad, by 2023 singles seeking love should not even need to swipe left or right – Tinder AI will be able to automatically identify which people they tend to like, and which people tend to like them. The matchmaking process will be automated, so all that would remain would be just dating.
Tinder is not the only player that has recognized the potential of AI and machine learning. OkCupid, for example, is a site that was founded by Harvard mathematicians who believed in the power of questions to lead you to meaningful relationships. The site has more than 3,000 questions that its users can answer about themselves and their preferences in order to help its algorithms to make better auto-matches.
eHarmony is another example for a major dating site that is gradually using more and more AI services for its matchmaking. The company currently manages 20 affinity models in its efforts to improve matches, capturing data on things like photo features, user preferences, site usage and profile content.
And of course – there is Facebook. About a year ago, Facebook launched their dating service, which uses a unique algorithm to match you potential dates, based on dating preferences, things in common and mutual friends. While at this stage their matchmaking algorithm is still very basic, it’s very likely that next the next version of the service will also use AI capabilities to improve matchmaking.
Genetic matchmaking
Gattaca is a 1997 sci-fi movie from staring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law. The movie presents a future society where children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they have the best hereditary traits of their parents. Like many other sci-fi pieces, this movie may have predicted the future.
InstantChemistry, DNARomacne and Pheramor are companies from recent years that offer genetic matchmaking. These services are based on studies that have shown that children born to couples with very different immune system genes are more likely to successfully defend themselves against a wider range of infections. Moreover, these couples enjoy more satisfying sex life and greater marital stability, have increased fertility rates and find each other more attractive.
The way these services work is quite simple: you register, fill in details about you and your preferences, as in “regular” dating service, and get a mouth D&A test kit that you use and send to the lab by mail. From that moment, you start receiving matches through the site or app, which are based on both your preferences and D&A match.
The next step
In the future, people will increasingly rely on AI matchmaking algorithms. Data for these algorithms will be transferred from multiple sources: direct data that the user will provide about himself and his preferences, data from social networking activity and D&A testing results.
In addition, there is a good chance that real-time data will be gathered by all sorts of wearable sensors that will be installed in our smartwatch, smart glasses or smart clothing. For example, the system could measure our heart rate, the expansion of our pupils or maybe even our dopamine secretion when meeting someone.
Matchmaking is going to be very similar to the one presented in the format of the reality TV series “Married at First Sight”, only with AI instead of human exports. People will actually trust AI more than they trust themselves.
The role of AI will not end with matchmaking, but will also include love-mentoring. It may sound a bit weird that computers are going to teach us about love, but if we take into account that in the future AI will function as our psychotherapists – it makes perfectly good sense. This notion was presented in the short film “A Date in 2025"
The dating sites paradox
It’s important to remember that online dating services like Tinder or OkCupid have an ironic paradox: the more efficient their matchmaking mechanism will become, the less money they will make. Online dating business model is based on subscription plans, advertising and individual purchases. All of these require one important factor: returning users.
This is why dating sites main interest is not necessarily for their users to find love, but more to give their users the impression that love is just around the corner and that if they will just keep using the dating services, they will find it. Not surprisingly, recent research has shown that online dating services can be very addictive and cause negative results – especially for lonely people with a strong preference for interacting through dating apps.
Dating sites will probably have to change their business model – no more free sites.
In conclusion
With the help of AI and D&A testing, finding your perfect match will probably be much easier one day. If you want to find it right now – try going out to your local pub. After all, fate is still the best matchmaker.