Reading George Dvorsky’s, The 10 Algorithms That Dominate Our World” (2014), got me thinking if the algorithms used in dating sites really work. After a while of browsing different articles online, I was quite shocked to find out that most websites were heavily disagreeing with the fact that these couple-matching algorithms actually work.
According to an article by The Huffington Port, “dating site algorithms are meaningless. They really don’t do anything.” From a Northwestern University research published in 2012, these matching algorithms have proven to be only insignificantly better at matching people than those same people are being matched by random chance.
These algorithms are not necessarily successful because at the end of the day relationships stand on much more than just the color of one’s eyes or the fact that he or she may or may not have a college degree. A computer algorithm cannot figure out if your character matches with someone’s else’s, or if you hit it off with that person on your first day because those are things that can easily be affected by many other factors such as the place you chose to go out to on your first date, the mood the other person happens to be in on that day, their smile, their smell, etc., etc.
Even OKCupid’s ability to rate the importance of the data has been questioned by many, in regards to the fact that people can easily get away with either “lying” or just by the simple fact that we are usually bad in rating our own preferences when it comes to relationships. It is therefore unlikely that these date-matching-algorithms based upon simple data collected question will be sufficient enough to identify one’s right long-term partner.
