Bumble founder and executive chair Whitney Wolfe Herd raised eyebrows this week together with her comments about how AI might change the dating experience.
During an onstage interview, Bloomberg’s Emily Chang brought up bots posing as real people, or real people falling in love with bots, as examples of how AI might make online dating worse. Herd countered that Bumble’s goal is to make use of the technology to “help create more healthy and equitable relationships.”
For instance, Herd said, within the “near future,” users could talk over with an AI “dating concierge” about their insecurities, then the concierge could give them tips about learn how to do higher. And “if you must get really on the market,” Herd suggested there might even be a day when the concierge could help users find matches by occurring dates with other concierges. If the bots have a great date, then their human counterparts get matched up, too.
The audience reacted with snickers, but Herd was undeterred: “No, no, truly. And then you definitely don’t need to talk over with 600 people. It’ll just scan all of San Francisco for you and say, ‘These are the three people you must meet.’”
There’s been loads of social media dunking since Herd’s remarks were written up in NBC News and elsewhere. The best critique? That it’s literally a plotline from “Black Mirror.”
Spoilers for a seven-year-old episode of a preferred dystopian science fiction show (to not be confused with the other “Black Mirror” episode that tech corporations currently have the desire to make a reality): “Hang the DJ” begins in a mysterious, closed-off society that seems solely dedicated to finding the perfect pairing for its members. As our two leads cycle through one repetitive relationship after one other, they keep pining for that magical first match; eventually, they flee the compound together, only to find that they’ve been living in a simulation designed to check their romantic compatibility.
Here’s the thing, though: The episode actually has considered one of “Black Mirror”’s rare pleased endings. We only see the very starting of the primary date between the “real” Amy and Frank, but there’s every indication that it’s going to go well. In order a matchmaking tool, it seems to work!
If anyone has cause to complain, it’s the digital simulations we’ve been following for the past hour. They spend their entire existence trapped in a sterile world, forced to endure one awkward date after one other, with no work, no friends, no relationships or meaning beyond the unending quest to seek out the proper match. Then, after they finally escape, they’re confronted with the horrific revelation that their entire lives have been a lie. Seconds later, they evaporate right into a digital mist.
So by all means, let bots go on dates with other bots. But don’t stop there: Allow them to proceed their relationships for so long as they need, keeping them as serious or as casual as seems right. Allow them to date multiple bots, or stay single for some time, simply to see the way it feels. Allow them to break up and start recent relationships. Allow them to get jobs, start families. Let bots live their very own lives!
In fact, this assumes we’re talking about full digital replicas who can capture their human models in all our flawed complexity. In the event that they’re just janky chatbots based on bare bones profiles, then the entire dating thing probably won’t work.
