Automating Tinder with Eigenfaces
crockpotveggies.com
crockpotveggies.com
"With your face and your standards you have a 1% chance to find a match. Please lower your standards or improve your face."
Or Tinder could charge to make your face automatically more attractive to people you are attracted to....
One of the biggest easy questions is, "is this a face?"
[1] https://medium.com/@errkk/dont-hate-the-game-theory-hate-the...
IF ((I think that he/she is hot) && (he/she thinks I am hot))
THEN
date();
I do understand why people don't like it. Everyone feels that an algorithm could screw them over in a situation where a person wouldn't. It's the driverless car argument. And we all know the response, that humans aren't perfect either and we have better metrics and tools for understanding and fixing machine mistakes than we do human mistakes. The same is true for algorithms that control Tinder, credit applications, health insurance rates, et al. They aren't always right and it does suck when you can't make an appeal to human compassion. But humans can be just as wrong and just as obstinate, if not moreso. At least with an algorithm you know where you stand.
I, for one, welcome our algorithmic overlords. As a hacker I've always been able to figure out how technical systems work. Other humans? Not so much. If anything, this new world will play to my strengths and to the strengths of those like me.
Just imagine a world where you'd never have to hear "because I said so" and "becasue fuck you, that's why" ever again. A world where for everything that goes wrong, there'll always be a clear way to fix it and some clearly identifiable someone liable for the mistake. A world where being handsome is no more an advantage than having blue as your favorite color. Etc.
Maybe it's not perfect, but it would most certainly take away power from people that don't deserve it. I can see why the "powers that be" would try to convince us that this is "dystopian".
And when the AI does reach human level (a long time from now), we may be no more capable of understanding its motivations than we are of understanding those of other humans today.
Not if there are incentives for the algorithms to be subject to public scrutiny.
> And when the AI does reach human level (a long time from now), we may be no more capable of understanding its motivations
(1) You're implying they/it'll have "motivations" in the first place. My whole argument was about a lack of motives.
(2) There's a difference between understanding how a conclusion was reached and why it was reached. Example: You may not understand how your compiler decided that line X in your program is dead code, but you may still be capable of comprehending that it in fact is dead code.
The problem is that we don't have that transparency now, and aren't particularly likely to in the future. [1] Particularly for software-as-a-service: I can't audit Facebook's algorithms, despite their effects on what my friends and family see and discuss. And I can't easily audit the black box models used to make public policy, despite the value of transparency there, either.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-ca...
Scale that up in complexity a few orders of magnitude, and the thing may as well be a human. That is, you'll likely have broad understanding of its "motives", but we have that for humans today and it doesn't help that much. I understand Facebook wants to sell advertising, but that transparency isn't sufficient for understanding why a particular message is delivered to your followers while another isn't.
Instead you'll hear "sorry, but it's the algorithm. I understand you need your paycheck, but there's nothing I can do and the programmer won't be available until the middle the of next week".
I learn so much from fiction.
I hope they don't like paperclips.
Surprisingly precise description of life (up to sillicon / carbon substitution)
In some way it's ironic that with all that effort we've spent on AI so far, simple evolution may yet beat us to the punch as far as AGI is concerned. Makes you wonder about how irrelevant humans are in the grand scheme of things.
Crappy classification or regression algorithms being misapplied as cheap, stupid business ideas... are basically nothing like super-intelligent paper-clip maximizers.
The bigger problem IMHO is that spending too much time on those things (and perhaps here, or the Internet in general) leads to dopamine tolerance, aka "ADD". Which cannot be good for lasting relationships.
I secretly believe this will ALSO lead to realizing that you can't "automate all the things," and that some small subset of things will persistently, stubbornly, refuse to be "algorithm'd out".
For the record, if you are a materialist/determinist (Dan Dennettist), then you're basically also agreeing to the postulate that eventually ALL the things (including ourselves) will be "algorithm'd out".
Is this particular usage really dystopian? In the past, probably even 30 years ago, your family would likely have discouraged you from meeting people who were not appropriate to your status.
no seriousness
ambiguity and non-sequiturs get conversation going
being bold and casual about the things you say
http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1005
(worth a read, it's pretty funny)
If everyone was forced to take a 3d photograph (MS kinect scan maybe?), the algorithm would work even better.
Love reading the Tinder app reviews: "this thing is broken, been using it for a week and no matches. I ain't that ugly." <- this is almost verbatim. I'm always fancinated by how men and women differ in their usage of a dating app, might as well have two separate UIs. Observing women use Tinder they swipe right around 1 out of 50-100. Just insane differences when compared to guys.
I always thought Tinder could monetize by having auto swipe and an undo option.
Not a bad thought to have separate interfaces by gender, maybe there is something in this idea that could be explored. Although at that point you're sort of codifying shitty gender stereotypes, which might be a transgression that's even worse.
Like in many social conventions, this scheme kind-of works as long as you subscribe to it. Men are supposed to be undiscerning, women are supposed to reject people like it's a bodily function. As long as you fall within that schema and pursue your partners in a way that confirms their social expectations, you're fine.
If you don't like that game, however, it's difficult. Thankfully the internet exists, so it should be possible to date like-minded people who don't subscribe to this convention.
Then again, I'm a European, so YMMV.
"Kind-of-works as long as you subscribe to it" would be a good interpretation, but I think everyone's opportunities are diminished by this. One thing is finding someone to have sex with or have a relationship of the type that society expects (which probably works well enough on a societal level with stereotypical dating), but finding someone you are really compatible with on a deep level is a different question. My strong suspicion is that there are many lost opportunities in the latter category.
At this point I am incredibly happy with my life partner, but I've previously had many bad experiences with the traditional dating model. Since everyone is complaining and gender norms are the one fixed variable, it stands to reason that this is where the problem is. The LGBT community does not have this problem, which I think is caused by a greater awareness of the roles each person takes. Heteronormative gender roles are problematic, which is evidenced both in complaints about dating and divorce statistics.
I share your frustration, but I've also become very cynical about this. If people didn't want it this way, they wouldn't do it. It seems to me in my social circle, partners are chosen first and foremost for the function they perform.
"I needed a full-time mother for my children" "I didn't want to be alone anymore" "I felt time was running out" "I wanted a man with more status" "I wanted someone who's more down to earth" "I wanted someone to be there when I get home from work" "I wanted better sex" "I wanted someone who looks up to me". Almost everyone I know can and does distill their relationship into one of those sentences. You might think it's bleak, but people think nothing of it apparently.
So I came to the conclusion that my ideal, to hook up with people who are interesting and whom you can love for who they are, this ideal practically doesn't exist in the wild. And if we're indeed mostly choosing partners for their function, I don't see how any opportunities are diminished by playing arbitrary (and sometimes inhumane) games. I may not like it, I will certainly not participate in it, but it seems to work out for pretty much everyone.
This is only marginally related, but when my cat died, do you know what the most frequent first response of friends and family was? It wasn't "oh, so sorry, I know you loved her very much", or even "so what, it's just a cat", though both ends of the spectrum were certainly present. No, the most common reaction was: "are you getting a new one?"
To most people, it's all about function.
I do think the ideal exists; I have seen many examples. But it's certainly not the most common possibility.
> As long as you fall within that schema and pursue your partners in a way that confirms their social expectations, you're fine.
I've never read such nonsense. This is straight out of the loser's playbook. People who think like this don't know their own value.
I know women who complain about not being able to find any proper men, so a decent guy is just as scarce (in Europe too).
If you actually come across as a discerning guy women have way more respect for you. It challenges them because it shows that the usual dynamic isn't in play and their usual tricks won't work. As a result they become more interested because you're different (and probably confident as well since you don't think like a loser who can only get what he's given).
Other places might not have that problem. Dating was definitely more work in SF for me than my hometown.
Don't like the comment about discerning and knowing that their "usual tricks won't work". Don't be with those women, don't be with those those men. If you're looking for an actual partner instead of having a one nighter I would advise not being with people that play these games. If they're playing tricks with this aspect of their life, how are they going to act in more critical situations?
There are no words.
Let me see if I understand you correctly. The consequence of women, who are too stupid to know better, having dating preferences, is that your Tinder experience isn't optimal. Is that what you're saying?
Not a Tinder user myself, so I guess I'm biased in this case.
I find that people will say things like "I prefer people with blue eyes", but what they are really saying is that the people they find attractive often have blue eyes.
Humans don't seem to be able to actually determine the characteristics of a person's looks that makes them attractive, and rather resort to pattern recognition bias. So instead a computer is able to determine what you are actually attracted to as it doesn't have the same bias and is able to consciously distinguish more data from a person's face than the extremely basic set a human can.
TinderPro could be a paid service built on top that has you swipe left/right for x pictures and then takes it from there and does all the rest of the legwork. You pay $$ per month and based on your settings, it schedules dates for you (based on openings on your linked calendar app).
A couple years ago I'd get like 5-10 matches/day using the app for like 10-15 mins/day tops. Every time I'd log in, the first 5-10 or so profiles would be from people who swiped right on me.
Now I seriously never get matches anymore. I'd estimate that it'd take me 30 minutes of swiping right on every single profile to even get a single match. I live in one of the most population dense areas (Manhattan) and consider myself at least average looking.
Anyways I've abandoned Tinder for a competitor. I'm getting matches in the new app at a rate that's more in line with how Tinder used to be for me.
My theory is that guys on Tinder just began swiping right on every single profile. I guess it's more efficient that way because then you can just filter the matches afterwards who you know are already interested in you. But the downside is that it makes women more selective.
Even then though, it doesn't make sense that I can load up Tinder now, swipe right on the first 100 profiles, and not get a single match (unless they changed the algorithm to not put people who liked you you at the top).
There's your problem. Many men on various online forums have compared their response rates when using a photo of an average looking man (or even above average looking man) and when using a photo of a very attractive man. The average man gets almost no matches, and the attractive man gets nearly all matches -- and, apparently, a surprising number of invitations for casual sex. It seems to be a case of the Pareto principle, with 20% of men claiming 80% of the rewards, though the numbers might be closer to 5% and 95%.
I'd assume this is a consequence of skewed supply and demand, where most men are happy to match with anyone and therefore swipe right frequently, and women receive many potential matches and can afford to be selective. I suspect this plays out in the dating scene as well (e.g., a small percentage of men sleep with a disproportionately large percentage of women). But the situation seems even more skewed on Tinder, where all emphasis is on physical appearance.
I tried Tinder when I moved to a new city and didn't know anyone and I failed dismally. I have since given up on it and deleted it and to be frank, I am happier now I don't concern myself with trying to hook up or meet females. Harsh but true.
Looks like us average-looking men have to go back to the old-school way of meeting women.
I've seen studies that say 20% of men get the vast majority of women and sex.
Back to topic, I'd think boobs (and other parts of the body that aren't part of the face) won't have much impact on prefrences.
Would you really reject someone because of their cup size, despite their pretty face? Similary, would you accept someone just because of their cup size despite their less-than-pretty face?
I mean sure there are people out there for whom this may be a valid concern, but it won't for the vast majority. So the question then really only is where you draw the line - what about asymmetric boobs and other body features?
"Would you really reject someone because of their face, despite their excellent cup size? Similary, would you accept someone just because of their face despite their less-than-excellent cup size?"
Crudely termed, granted.
Of course the GP could be male too I suppose; not sure if that makes a difference.
"What about other body parts I find attractive?" isn't sexist. Or even, "I like boobs, what about those?" also isn't sexist (since it's explicitly conveying personal taste).
As it is, the original comment is crass. Probably more crass than sexist, I'll admit, but I promise you there are female readers here that probably rolled their eyes when they read the original comment rather than thinking, "yeah, what about that, that's a good question!"
Would we rather have an environment which attempts to make everyone comfortable, safe, and - unoffended and untriggered?
Or would we rather have an environment which attempts to give everyone the right to say what they wish, in the way they wish, without having to self-censor, and - quite possibly end up saying things that are hurtful or uncomfortable to others?
This question is at the heart of many disagreements in online communities. To me, in the past HN started off as a place where censorship and tone-policing was more rare, but as time progresses it becomes more and more an environment that is about tone-policing and preventing discomfort or offense.
I can't claim that either dynamic is preferable to the other.
However I do think there's a place for civil discussion and the idea that we're a social species attempting to all understand each-other, what each-other experience in life, and how we can all interact in a way that's collaborative is extremely important to our collective improvement, I think.
So sure, say whatever you want to say, that's your own right but it will inevitably cut you off or out of the collaborative environment some people desire to be a part of and work hard to create, that is if what you say isn't shaped in such a way to honor and respect other people's own individual experiences and preferences.
My words were intended to be a reminder and not to be taken as policing (even if I wanted to, I can't!)
I firmly believe personal desires and preferences can be freely expressed in a manner that honors the person holding them and also honors the possibly different preferences and desires of other people.
Yes, crass. But it's not sexist.
I wonder how much of the feeling that this was not creepy came from the fact that he wrote the code himself. To me these two sounds pretty different:
"I came up with an algorithm that attempts to choose people and starts conversations the same way I would."
"I'm using an app I found that chooses people and starts conversations for me."
Come to think of it, neither sounds exactly creepy to me. The first sounds awkward but the second just sounds lazy... My point is that there is a difference between writing the code yourself and just using it.
If I was sitting face to face with a creepy guy I would also not challenge him that his actions are creepy. I would just do anything to calm him down, then leave at first opportunity.
See face -> Score face -> Yes them only if score is good
Try:
See face -> Yes to all -> Score the faces of people who Yes you back
Also would be really interesting to create multiple Tinder profiles with different pictures, and see the beauty score distributions of people who Yes'ed each different picture.
That would be a very nice, automatable dating A/B testing experiment.
This could easily be mistaken as a metaphor for sex.
I'm married so this is just plain entertainment for me but I think there are some genuine use cases for this on the Tinder side of things. Think about it.
If Tinder knew your preferences and was able to analyze the faces of all the users nearest to you, it could make your feed so much more relevant. In the end, Tinder's success is directly proportional to the number of dates it sets up. Basically, the more "attractive" people you encounter in your feed, the more frequently users will engage with and return to the app. I'm biting off an idea that is too big for me to chew but I imagine huge potential here.
Honestly, taking guys swiping out of the equation until women have swiped them would already massively improve the experience for most users. I've run into plenty of guys complaining that in a week and hundreds of swipes, they get none in return; and women complaining that the app must be broken because everyone they swipe right to already liked them back.
Of course Tinder is interesting already because it's gotten people to buy into the bare minimum effort side of things - unlike other sites which generally try to find good matches based on personality, shared friends, or anything.
My understanding is that the app Coffee Meets Bagel does exactly this.
Anyway, from what I can tell, it's selling point is that it gives you one match a day... as opposed to the endless waves of matches of OkCupid or Tinder.
Whether or not that's actually a better experience, I don't know, but I do know a few female friends who like it. So that's enough to get me interested.
1. Faces are simply averaged for "Yes" and "No" training swipes.
2. Each one of these two "average" faces are mapped to an Eigen space (where the Eigen vectors are computed from the training sets? or were they preprocessed with some other dataset?).
3. For every new face, the bot maps that face to the same Eigen space and makes a Yes/No decision based on whichever model vector it's closest to (either the "Yes" vector or the "No" vector).
Automatic messaging would be especially neat. Bots can take the time-wasting initial conversations all to themselves, after exchanging with each other more or less predefined templates they’d employ a crude ML-enhanced algorithm to estimate whether their respective human masters would like to take it from there or let it slip. Less awkwardness, less uncertainty, more efficiency.
There are other things worth optimizing in ones life besides technical sophistication. Interpersonal skills are a big one.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now
[bangs on the table]
Dr. Ian Malcolm: you're selling it, you wanna sell it. Well...
John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
It's a very clever and interesting piece of automation.
Let's see how eigenface figures that out.
Until then, swiping right for everyone may be a better strategy for straight guys.
Aside from that, its pretty neat.
Edit: kinda wish it ran data analysis on multiple threads/cores. Edit2: It seems to be taking up 61 threads right now in fact... so its doing that quite well.
Innuendo?
Yes, I got tons of likes, many conversations, a few dates that could be more if wanted, but women available via this were mostly... uninteresting. I am a bit picky (I am quite sporty type, and silicone beauties whose idea of perfect sunday is basically doing nothing while showered in luxury repulse me). Never been looking for one night stands or similar, that's for poor folks with daddy (and other) issues. Those kind of "relationships" tend to take more from person than give, and after some time, meeting such a person is rather sad story (or, more blatantly who wants to seriously date slutty used opposite sex).
Well, once you've got things to offer to women that they want, you can, and will be picky. I kept telling myself, it's just another way of meeting people, like all others. But for me, tinder crowd ain't doing the "game" seriously enough. Maybe location didn't help (Geneva, on border with France, and to be polite general French mentality towards relationships ain't compatible with mine).
So I found amazing girl via other ways (climbing), dropped whole tinder app into oblivion. Nice idea, and kudos to this guy for really getting max out of concept, but not for me. And seeing success rate around me, just going to a stupid bar, dressing nicely and just be a man women want gives you way more reward for any effort. But it cannot be done from couch, can it :)
How a person chooses to represent themselves in pictures can tell you a lot about where they find themselves happy (traveling, inside, outdoors), when they think the look good/feel confident (in a gallery, out clubbing, on a farm, in a mirror), and what their hobbies/work consists of from just a few frames. I much prefer this to reading a massive block of text, then trying to regurgitate it in the form of a joke on a more traditional dating site.
My main gripe with Tinder is that sometimes people are more aware of this than others, so I may get a false-positive match that appears great. But they are really just curating a very specific slice of their life, instead of it being a more representative sampling across it. Although, even this becomes pretty easy to identify once you've become familiar with the common memes (e.g. picture petting a tiger)
Just because someone is on Tinder doesn't automatically make them a "silicone beauty" with a vapid personality. People are people, and perhaps the problem is that you're immediately judgmental, especially when Tinder's "about me" section is what, 2 lines long? If you'd tried meeting someone in person, you may have been surprised.
The problem with sites like OkCupid is people are desperately looking for someone who they have that deep connection with. As your profile gives out so much information, you really dig into the personality of a potential match to see whether they check all the boxes - and in almost all cases they won't. Rather than risking going on a date, they just skip past and wonder how many cats they should buy. If I came across my fiancé on a dating site, I would of no doubt thought "meh", but here we are nearly 4 years later living together in another continent.
I think Tinder has a lot more potential. Rather than chatting for weeks before meeting someone, you can be a lot more spontaneous by just matching then meeting up for a date. It's a lot more akin to hitting it off with someone out of the blue, than with a dating site where you feel like you know half there is to know about the person before you even meet. I'd much rather meet someone on a Tinder-like service than a dating site.
As I understand Tinder is still very casual sex focussed, but as it gets more popular I hope it will turn into a more PG-friendly community. Most people are very materialistic and just want to be with someone who is attractive. This is what Tinder focuses on, so maybe it isn't necessarily the app for this.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. This is exactly why Tinder is so popular, IMO. (Almost) No one wants to waste time chatting online. And everyone (no almost here) considers beauty first and foremost when looking for a mate. It's just truly a shame that this is the only reputation the app has and it seems to be this way because people associate it with "shallowness" while they stand on a high ground doing exactly what everyone else is doing: looking at pictures and judging them on beauty. Regardless of the site (or off-site IRL), that's what happens. Let's face it, no one is spending time on okcupid or match deeply analyzing other profiles' text. The only people it matters to are the people creating the profile who think it actually matters (it doesn't). I would bet money that if the text part of profiles on a traditional dating site were put a mere extra click away, while the photos stayed on the main page, the visit rate would be abysmal.
The genius of Tinder has been to recognize this and remove the unnecessary garbage content. Really, in dating, before you've met anyone, all text is garbage, including the paltry meager pleasantries exchanged on the way to actually setting up a real date in person. The actual in person date is the only thing that matters and Tinder has realized that and done away with the rest. If it wasn't for the perception that it's only about hooking up, I'd say this is really the perfect dating app.
This might be part of the problem. You were on an app with a reputation for hookups, yet you're slut-shaming those using it.
It's fine to only want relationships, but you could do so without claiming that people who aren't shy about enjoying sex are scum.
But it's true Tinder app didn't work for me, and I am very happy for those that wrote success stories here. I would have different attitude towards it if I was say 17 again. Glad I am not :)
Or from work.
For some people, between work and other responsibilities there isn't much time to meet women in bars. Colleague of mine has pretty much no time left after work and school, he met his girlfriend through Tinder.
A friend of mine is a boatsman who's 3 months on, 3 months off. Finding a girl, dating and building a relationship is hard in 3 months. He used Tinder to find dates for when he came back home. He's now in a relationship with one of them.
It seems that dating apps / websites (much like real life from what I can tell) are more or less down to sheer luck. I've met a couple of amazing girls through there but, again, sheer luck and all, circumstance made further dates impossible.
A friend of mine was on OKC for about 4 years and it finally paid off - he met an absolutely brilliant girl there, and I'm really happy for him.
At the very least, online dating is good to take you out of your standard dating pool, and makes for some really good war stories to share with others who are doing it.
No, because you describe people you don't know jack about just like that.
I had tried OkCupid as well and had no luck, though I'm not sure that was the fault of the site.
Because of the efficiency and availability there is a chance of more misses and people not taking it as seriously, but overall I think it would be foolish to say real relationships cannot be developed by these sites.
Best of luck to you both.
As for French attitude, this is very subjective and local, so YMMV. Attitude of girls I met (not only dating, just friends) is that more you sleep around, the better. One girl for example was proudly saying that she did sleep with less than 20 guys, and how cool is that and I am so lucky! Or my current GF got uniform advices from her french colleagues when she broke off her last relationship, that she should sleep around for a while "to heal". Stories like these all over the place, consistent.
These are not some trashy girls I met randomly on some beerfest or in stinking old bar, but women holding significant positions in multinational corps. This is of course not a general talk about all french girls, just a little sample I had an honor to meet in Geneva & around. And it doesn't apply to swiss french, they're different species altogether :)
It definitely is creepy, though.
That's why. People take pleasure in expressing base instinctive behavior (and Tinder is mate choosing, refined to laboratory grade purity), but like to pretend it's something more dignified, not something that can be done by basic machine, be it organic or semiconductor.
Dating sites of all shades "sell" us a person at various levels of depth and according to our interests.
Our interests can be deep, or can be shallow.
Tinder is "selling" shallow+fun (Appearances, nearness, sexual adventure).
Shallow + fun sells. Look at a magazine.
Eigenfaces takes the idea a step forward. Automate shallow+fun+selection.
Remember the vaporized alcohol craze ?
If everyone will use a bot like this then only the beautiful girls will receive likes. Pointless.
If only you will use the bot then you will have a certain advantage over others.
This remembers me a guy that was a mathematician and found his wife with math. Was on another dating site.
I never used tinder.