Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Dating Roundup #3: Third Time's the Charm, published by Zvi on May 9, 2024 on LessWrong.
The first speculated on why you're still single. We failed to settle the issue. A lot of you were indeed still single. So the debate continues.
The second gave more potential reasons, starting with the suspicion that you are not even trying, and also many ways you are likely trying wrong.
The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over again expecting different results. Another definition of insanity is dating in 2024. Can't quit now.
You're Single Because Dating Apps Keep Getting Worse
A guide to taking the perfect dating app photo. This area of your life is important, so if you intend to take dating apps seriously then you should take photo optimization seriously, and of course you can then also use the photos for other things.
I love the 'possibly' evil here.
Misha Gurevich: possibly evil idea: Dating app that trawls social media and websites and creates a database of individuals regardless of if they opt in or not, including as many photos and contact information as can be found.
Obviously this would be kind of a privacy violation and a lot of people would hate it.
but I imagine a solid subset of singles who are lonely but HATE the app experience would be grateful to be found this way.
No big deal, all we are doing is taking all the data about private citizens on the web and presenting it to any stranger who wants it in easy form as if you might want to date them. Or stalk them. Or do anything else, really.
And you thought AI training data was getting out of hand before.
All right, so let's consider the good, or at least not obviously evil, version of this.
There is no need to fill out an intentional profile, or engage in specific actions, other than opting in. We gather all the information off the public web. We use AI to amalgamate all the data, assemble in-depth profiles and models of all the people. If it thinks there is a plausible match, then it sets it up.
Since we are in danger of getting high on the creepiness meter, let's say the woman gets to select who gets contacted first, then if both want to match in succession you put them in contact. Ideally you'd also use AI to facilitate in various other ways, let people say what they actually want in natural language, let the AI ask follow-up questions to find potential matches or do checks first (e.g. 'I would say yes if you can confirm that he…') and so on.
There is definitely not enough deep work being done trying to overturn the system.
Bumble gives up its one weird trick, goes back to men messaging first.
Melissa Chen: The evolution of Bumble:
Sick of men inboxing women ("the patriarchy is so creepy and icky!")
Starts dating app to reverse the natural order (women now make the first move! So empowering! So brave & stunning!)
Women complain it's exhausting
Reinstate the natural law
Hardcore Siege: It's such ridiculous headline. I have never gotten an opener on Bumble besides "hey", women never actually work go start a conversation or have a good opener, they're literally just re-approving the ability of the man to start the conversation.
Outa: Anyone that's used it would tell you that 99% of the time they would just leave a "hey" or "."
Casey Handmer: AFAIK no one has yet made a dating app where the cost of sending messages is increased if you're a creep. This would be technologically easy to do, and would let the market solve the problem.
Several interesting things here.
1. Many 'women never actually initiated the conversation' responses. Women say 'hey' to bypass the requirement almost all the time. That is not obviously useless as a secondary approval, but it presumably is not worth the bother.
2. This was among women who self-selected into the app with mandatory female openers, so yeah, women really really...

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