Reallife calling: don't let AI suck the love out of online dating

In Spike Jonze's 2013 film, Her, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with the AI chatbot inside his phone.

- 

The situation is meant to be very futuristic, with Phoenix's character Theodore working a non-existent job and traversing a city that looks like a Shanghai-Los Angeles hybrid. He even uses a teeny-tiny pocketbook device as an all-inone phone, games console and cloud-based voice service.

I don't think, however, that Jonze realised just how near that future would be. Just 12 years on from Her's release and AI and dating have become natural bedfellows. They're tucked in, comfortable, and leaving crumbs in the sheets.

AI has been part of online dating for longer than you've probably even realised. Those Hinge profiles that are algorithmically registered as being so popular you're only able to send them.

a "rose" instead of your usual "like"? That's an Al-informed selection to provide you with the most "relevant" profiles. "As our app learns more about you, it will continually adjust the predictions," Hinge explains via its AI principles web page. But as AI and dating get increasingly cosy, they're also making things more obvious.