Why machines have become matchmakers

A Date in 2025 is a short film on YouTube that explores the expected influence of intelligent machines on everyday life, including romantic relationships.

Released in 2018, the film depicts a young, single man named Daniel interacting with a "superintelligent" virtual assistant. The artificial intelligence (AI) system runs every device in the house while engaging Daniel in conversation as though it were a real human being.

At some point, the AI system convinces Daniel that loneliness is not healthy and suggests he start chatting with a girl who attends the same online class he does.

Without divulging the rest of the story, Daniel's AI system eventually interacts with the girl's virtual assistant to stoke the fires of romance as the two young people were nervous about meeting each other.

"I love our little pets," Daniel's AI Assistant says to its counterpart at the end of the film.

2025 is just a year away, making one wonder whether humans will turn into pets of intelligent machines that soon. A film critic noted that online classes, online dates, social anxiety and computers that predict our behaviour are no longer science fiction. These features already exist.

In much of human history, single men and women who attained the age of marriage were hooked up by older members of society. The couple would meet close to their wedding day – in some cases on the actual day of the wedding – and were expected to live happily together as husband and wife.

Love machines?

What's the difference between letting machines find you a romantic partner and finding one with the help of relatives? In either case, you would be entrusting an external party to find you a compatible partner.

"A new trend is emerging: Artificial Intelligence is helping singles connect more effectively," Dr Helen Fisher, an anthropologist, has concluded. "AI is positioned to become a vital new tool for finding love."

In a 2023 study supported by online dating service Match, Fisher and her colleagues found that 14 per cent of online daters had already used AI for dating, saying that the intelligent systems helped them meet potential partners faster.

If you have used modern dating websites and apps, you have unwittingly benefited from the services of AI-powered platforms. Indeed, such platforms and dating apps are gaining popularity worldwide, including in Kenya. The apps utilise AI algorithms to match users based on preferences, interests, and compatibility, increasing the chances of finding a suitable partner.

If you thought online dating is only for shy people, you better think again. A survey conducted last year in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda by Geopoll found that 97 per cent of respondents had used dating apps.

"Our data suggests that the most significant demographic using dating apps falls within the 25 to 34 age range, but the platforms cater to individuals of all ages," Geopoll explains in a statement. The survey was done through smartphone applications, which might explain the dominance of respondents who admitted to using dating apps.

Asked why they were into online dating, 47.5 per cent of respondents stated they were looking for serious relationships and romantic encounters. Surprisingly, a third of respondents said they were in it merely to make new friends.

The data proves that, even in a developing country such as Kenya, a significant part of the population may be having its romantic choices influenced by AI just as in the film A Date in 2025.

AI streamlines the dating process, making it more efficient and personalised for users in any location. If you are in Nakuru, for example, you will get matches near your current location and not from some far-off place.

AI is also being used to detect and prevent fraud and catfishing on dating platforms. Romance fraudsters are people who pretend to fall in love for the purposes of extracting money from victims. Catfishing is when someone sets up a fake online identity and uses it to trick others. News reports indicate AI systems can catch over 90 per cent of fake online dating accounts.

Imperfect humans

The main risk of using AI for socialising is that some people may become too reliant on technology and fail to use their own judgement when choosing a lover. Furthermore, humans are not perfect and AI might leave out potential partners who don't meet a specific set of criteria though such persons might make a good match if they started talking to each other.

Some dating apps have AI systems that can automatically send text-based responses to potential lovers, in essence, allowing users to let the machines talk for them. What if the person on the other side is also sending out responses generated by AI? Such machine-mediated forms of dating have been criticised as "superficial," that is, lacking a genuine human connection.

Proponents of using AI in dating argue that the technology is not immoral because AI is simply a tool that can be used for various purposes. The adoption of AI by dating platforms and the millions of individual users will eventually determine the technology's impact on online dating.

Coming back to the earlier question of whether dating with AI is any different from traditional matchmaking; both approaches link men and women interested in getting into relationships. In traditional matchmaking systems, the matchmakers could be trusted to do the right thing because they were grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts or some other relatives of those they were trying to hook up.

AI systems that run dating apps are located thousands of miles away from users who have never met the designers of those systems. Anyone using AI to find romantic partners has no choice but to believe the technology has been designed with good intentions.