This article was first published in the July 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Most bots on Tinder are gold-digging scams -- but Justin Long's one just wants to find him a date. "The best and worst feature of Tinder is swiping," says the Vancouver-based developer, 26. "My friends and I found it was consuming all our time." (Tinder estimates an average user spends 90 minutes per day browsing prospective dates on the app.) His solution: to create an AI assistant that knows his type, and then let it do the swiping for him.
The bot, called Tinderbox, uses a visual algorithm called Eigenfaces to analyse the facial features of prospective dates and swipe left or right based on Long's preferences. "If I made 60 choices, it would learn enough to make an educated decision," says Long. The bot then starts up a conversation using a tree of pre-set responses, and uses sentiment analysis to judge if the other person is interested before notifying Long to take over. "In three weeks it created more than 150 matches, and I went on around ten dates," he says. But doesn't Long worry his creation might seem a little creepy, given the reaction to OkCupid hacker Chris McKinlay (WIRED 03.14)? "One of the first things I would bring up is: by the way, you're talking to a bot," says Long. "That's why girls didn't find it creepy: I told them straight up."
His efforts have garnered interest from Tinder and Long is now looking into licensing the bot to computer-vision researchers. "I think Tinder can really benefit from it," he says. "There's so much data, they're going to have to do some visual learning."
As for Long himself, he no longer needs it. "I actually started seeing someone because of it," he says. "So far it's going great."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
