When the most profound human emotion becomes an automated transaction in an online shop, the techlords have won
The Guardian reported on the arrival of “Fate” and, friends, I laughed. Or maybe I cried.
It’s apparently the first “agentic AI dating app”. An AI personality named “Fate” interviews users, runs data matches on their hopes and dreams, then suggests five potential matches based on the hard data of observable complementary language patterning, “No swiping involved!”.
It has been followed by similar AI-based matching platforms Sitch and Keeper in the US. In the platform variations, you can detail preference data down to hair colour, you can be coached in how to approach your date by the animated electronic voice of a dataset, and you can weep for the end of human connection and the loveless wasteland of consumer narcissism we have built for ourselves. When the most profound and transformative of human emotions is an automated transaction in an online shop, the techlords have won.
In the depths of my growing neo-Luddite despair I am obliged to admit that in what is now a common-denominator story, consumers did not actually demand this.
