Wepresent the surreal future of online dating



Ben Ditto: CLOUDBURST — Outsourced Dating

Welcome once again to the unsettling world of CLOUDBURST, Ben Ditto’s eerie series about modern technology. In this fourth installment, we come to the inevitable future of online dating. As you read this not-so-impossible story, ask yourself: would you continue with the endless swiping and miserable drinks at a convenient bar, or give in and choose this second option?

Ben Ditto: CLOUDBURST — Outsourced Dating

Welcome once again to the unsettling world of CLOUDBURST, Ben Ditto’s eerie series about modern technology. In this fourth installment, we come to the inevitable future of online dating. As you read this not-so-impossible story, ask yourself: would you continue with the endless swiping and miserable drinks at a convenient bar, or give in and choose this second option?

I have a friend who approached dating using scientific methodology. She was a risk analyst in the city. She read that the likelihood of a chemically compatible match was 1 in 100. This ratio needs to be adjusted for being “sane, single and solvent”. She then proceeded to date someone every day after work until she met her ideal partner. It took her around two years but the stats checked out.

I’m too busy for that and I dislike dating so I set up and trained an AI model to act as a proxy, going through an avatar service. They went out and did the hard work, meeting dozens (hundreds) of potential partners. Most of the time it's an avatar speaking to an avatar. They cycle through each other at a much faster rate than we could achieve but they still take the time required: due diligence. They don’t need to eat or sleep or work so they are pretty much optimized dating machines. They need some calibration and you get the best results if you train them as realistically as possible: best foot forward but don’t hide the blemishes.

Tweet this “Getting to know strangers can be difficult if you’re not witty and gregarious.”

Of course you could reduce this to a cold process, big data clinically utilized to create the perfect partnership, but there’s a joy in observing the model you created going out into the world and having an adventure. Something like “The Sims” on autopilot but the main character is yourself and the prize is everlasting happiness. This comes at a subscription cost, but it's no more expensive than a streaming service.

There was a moment where my proxy was meeting a lot of suitor proxies who would do the equivalent of swiping right on literally anyone but I trained a second model to act as a filter: a mass-rejection model. Gatekeeper. Cerberus at the gates of All Bar One. The candidates that got through her got to date the real proxy.