How Machine Learning Can Transform Online Dating

First time accepted submitter hrb1979 writes "Thought I'd share an interview with Kang Zhao — the professor behind the machine learning algorithm which could transform online dating. His algorithm takes into account both a user's tastes (in an approach similar to the Netflix recommendation engine) and their attractiveness (by analyzing how many responses they get) — enabling the machine to 'learn' and hence propose higher potential matches. His research was recently covered in both a Forbes' article and the MIT Technology Review, though this interview provides more depth and color."

Comments

Not the algorithm we need

[russotto]

All the algorithms in the world aren't going to help when the intersection of "people you'd care to date" and "people who'd care to date you" is empty. What we need is an algorithm to convince people to lower their expectations when they're unattractive, boring, unmannerly, old, poor and/or cheap, have baggage, etc.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[TheloniousToady]

What we need is an algorithm to convince people to lower their expectations when they're unattractive, boring, unmannerly, old, poor and/or cheap, have baggage, etc.

Don't they already have that algorithm up and working here at Slashdot?

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[gstoddart]

No kidding. I've known a few people who aren't exactly the best catches who refuse to date anybody who looks anything less than a supermodel.

If you're 80 pounds overweight, or a raging nerd, or whatever, and you refuse to date someone who isn't perfect ... you're going to be single and lonely for a long time.

I've known way too many people with their own defects (and who among us doesn't have them, especially here) who looked at potential partners and turned up their nose for stupid reasons -- a little overweight, wears glasses, curly hair.

Not saying you need to date the ugliest person you can find, but having a realistic expectation of what you might actually get goes a long way.

Don't be the Comic Book Guy saying "Oh, I've wasted my life" and passing up opportunities. If you're a 5, don't shoot for a 10.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[CastrTroy]

I think the issue is that nobody is perfect. There is no single "ideal" person, male or female. Somebody who comes from a society with arranged marriages explained this to me, and why those relationships often end up working out better. Because both people going into it know that it is something they are going to have to work on, and that not everything about their relationship will be perfect. I'm not saying that arranged marriages are the right answer, but going into a relationship with the expectation that you'll have to work through difficulties can help a lot. So many people give up at the first sign of a problem. They want everything to come easy, be it with relationships, school, jobs, and any other aspect of life.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[CubicleZombie]

What we need is an algorithm to convince people to lower their expectations when they're unattractive, boring, unmannerly, old, poor and/or cheap, have baggage, etc.

Someone already wrote that in Perl. It's called Craigslist.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[gweihir]

Looks are pretty much unimportant, or rather if you are halfway sane you do not want to date anybody looking like a "supermodel". It either comes with neuroses or a huge ego not justified by anything. One the other hand, people dating on looks may just get what they deserve.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[Grishnakh]

What we need is an algorithm to convince people to lower their expectations when they're unattractive, boring, unmannerly, old, poor and/or cheap, have baggage, etc.

The problem here is that there's no way for an algorithm to know these things about someone. No one puts on their online dating profile, "I'm a cheap-ass, I have terrible manners, and I still have issues about my ex-wife even though we divorced 15 years ago." They only put the good parts. They even dress up the photos, like showing only their face in particular artful poses if they're obese, so you can't easily tell that from the photos.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[Grishnakh]

Looks are pretty much unimportant, or rather if you are halfway sane you do not want to date anybody looking like a "supermodel". It either comes with neuroses or a huge ego not justified by anything.

There's a big difference between only dating supermodels and refusing to date someone who's extremely unattractive (for instance, morbidly obese). A lot of men avoid overly-attractive women as they assume they're "high maintenance", and look for women in the next tier down (the "girl next door" type); they want someone who's attractive, but not so beautiful that they're going to be a PITA and have those neuroses you talk of (and demand he spend all kinds of money on her so she can have weekly spa treatments, ridiculously expensive designer clothes, etc.). This doesn't mean they're willing to date a woman who's 300 pounds.

Looks are important: if you're not at all physically attracted to someone, you're not going to have an easy time maintaining a romantic relationship with them. For men, you may have serious problems "getting it up" if you don't find the woman at least somewhat attractive.

Re:Not the algorithm we need

[Zibodiz]

This. However, I will add something: Having similar goals and work ethic is important. I think, ultimately, people can work through almost any differences with a positive outcome, as long as their religion, work ethic, and life goals are similar. Pretty much the 'big picture' stuff. Of the girls I dated before marrying my wife, I can honestly say that I *could* have made it work with any of them, with the exception of those points. Religion is, frankly, flexible enough that it doesn't seem to need to be an exact fit unless one of the people involved is totally consumed by their religion; the two real important points, though, is whether the two people are going in the same direction.
One of my former girlfriends was extremely lazy. She wound up marrying a guy who fits her perfectly; a disabled vet (dare I call him that? He was in the Army for 1 year before being medically discharged, never got deployed), and they now live on welfare while neither of them works, instead spending their foodstamps on alcohol & cigarettes, and their time making babies.
Another girl I dated was headed through college with the goal of becoming a middle manager for a large corporation. I'm not sure where she is today, but last I knew, she was getting married to a guy who didn't really have a career goal; seems like a perfect fit to me, since it seems most middle managers need to relocate a few times.
Now, for contrast: My goals were to become self-employed and start a chain of electronic shops. Early on, that meant many 16+-hour-days with very little pay. I'm now past the really hard part of starting a business, and am well on my way to opening my second shop. The girl I am proud to call my wife is a perfect fit. She's a hard worker, her life goal was basically to spend as much time with family as possible, and she's good at seeing 'the big picture'; we've been married for almost 6 years now, and there's no question that we're a perfect match. When we first met, our interests, tastes in music, hobbies, food preferences, culture, families -- they were all pretty different. Of course, in the past decade or so, we've gradually become more alike, but ultimately it all really had no bearing on our happiness. The only thing that mattered was that we were going the same direction.
Also worth noting: we met on the Internet and became friends before we met in person or really got a good idea of what each other looked like. We didn't base our relationship on physical attraction, but rather on friendship.

Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

His research was recently covered in both a Forbes' article and the MIT Technology Review

It was also recently covered on Slasdot.

I prefer this formula; it's more honest

[tekrat]

The perfect formula for matchmaking:

Males: Enter income.
Females: Enter attractiveness.

Match up most attractive to highest earners.

Re:Dating Algorithm Corollary

[serviscope_minor]

This is true even though a homely spouse makes for a much more attentive husband/wife.

Do they? Ugly people are just as capable of obnoxious behaviour as attractive ones.

Dating Sites

[Bigbutt]

Being recently divorced (last year), I started poking around at the various dating sites. Let's see, I don't smoke, I effectively don't drink alcohol (one beer a year doesn't make me a "drinker"), I'm a gamer (you'd be amazed at the number of women who think gamers are "childish"), and I'm not into sports (lots of women who go to football/baseball/hockey games). I do like going hiking in the mountains, snowshoes, skiing, I like bicycling. But I'm not a fitness fanatic which also eliminated quite a few women. I'm not religious which eliminated a few more.

After eliminating the mis-matches, I started paring down the other issues. Based on profiles, I got down to about 60 women in the area who might be an match based on shared interests. I received no replies to my e-mails but I did receive three unrelated emails. One from a women in Australia. One from a woman in Texas who had pictures of her daughter leaning on a car (which was a bit creepy). And one from a woman who plays guitars who appeared to be looking for a man in every city.

Amusingly on my birthday (hit 56), my match list dropped to zero. Every one of the women were looking for guys 55 or younger. So I expanded my search until I got to a couple of women in a 250 mile radius.

For some of us (a small percentage I suppose), the dating sites really aren't helping. And since women receive all the emails, they have the choice of who to go out with.

Humorously I was chosen to moderate pictures on okcupid for a bit. The guys do send some very suggestive emails (and some not so suggestive!).

[John]

Re:GIGO

[Antique Geekmeister]

> the reason you are still single is because you have unrealistically high opinion of your own charm

As opposed to " the reason you are still single is because you don't try"? Arrogance, which is what you're describing, can actually help. It can provide the confidence to actually ask out potential dates, to believe that you're worth spending time with, and get you past failures. Never trying is guaranteed failure, and it's too common.

Re:Dating Algorithm Corollary

[serviscope_minor]

I seldom see drop-dead gorgeous female engineers or scientists....You don't think there is a strong correlation between attractiveness and personal qualities/careers/etc.?

Let us say that intelligence and attractiveness are uncorrelated.

The probability of being both at once is very low, since you're multiplying the two small independent probabilities associated with attractiveness and intelligence.

If, of course you chose any segment of the population not selected specifically for attractiveness, then the probability of any given member being attractive is low.

Drop-dead gorgeous female scientists and engineers are particularly rare because (a) female scientists and enigneers are rare and (b) drop-dead gorgeousness is rare. Even uncorrelated if you multiply those tow probabilities, a small number results.

If you have something where members are chosen for attractiveness then yes, the average member will be more attractive than the average.

Would I say that my fellow scientists and engineers are on average less attractive than a random sampling of the population? That's a hard call. There are whole segments of the population that I rarely mix with which makes such things hard to judge. I never have cause to visit grim, deprived, crime ridden former mining towns of the North for example. But I haven't noticed any particular difference. There's one guy in my office you could easily tell from the outside (long hair, overweight and wearing anime t-shirts is kind of a give away). The rest not so much.

Re:Dating Algorithm Corollary

[Grishnakh]

I seldom see drop-dead gorgeous female engineers or scientists.

That's because smart and gorgeous women know that those professions are underpaid and undervalued in Western (particularly American) society, so they avoid them (they also want to avoid all the sexual harassment). Instead, these women go into the medical field. I've met several nearly drop-dead gorgeous female physicians. And they certainly get better pay and better job security than I do as an engineer, while not being surrounded by creepy men or brogrammers.