Das Magazin | Aha Festival piece

Das Magazin is the weekly magazine of Tages-Anzeiger

Alongside four other presenters from the aha festival in Lucerne, I wrote a short piece about my talk. See below for the English version.

Can an algorithm choose the right partnerfor me? (Maybe even better than I could myself?)

The short answer is –no, but the longer answer is much more complex.

Dating platforms usealgorithms to choose the order in which we see profiles, and this order plays apart in how attractive we will find those profiles. For example, we findprofiles more attractive if they appear to be responsive, that is caring,understanding and validating, particularly if they appear after an unresponsiveprofile. This is also true of physical attractiveness, a highly attractiveprofile has an effect on those viewed after it.

However, other aspectsof online dating also change who we choose to date. The structure of onlinedating profiles means that we see a breadth of information about a person,their values, attitudes or interests, and people will often dismiss a potentialdate based on this information. When we meet people offline we tend to viewpeople in a more holistic way. We consider their warmth, humour, and ourconnection with them, and if we like them on that level then hobbies orattitudes might not be as important in our decision to date them or not. 

In short, onlinedating changes how we choose partners, but it doesn’t choose that partner forus.