如何微管理您的约会生活

There is no doubt that on the whole, the economic impacts from the lockdown and pandemic will be devastating. But while most leisure activities were throttled by the lockdown, others thrived — just ask any of your friends that did Yoga With Adrienne (probably the same mates that brew their own kombucha). Another unlikely winner? Dating apps. Tinder and Bumble usage alone spiked by over 20%, with Tinder registering 3 billion swipes on 28 March alone.

毫无疑问，总体而言，封锁和大流行带来的经济影响将是毁灭性的。 但是，尽管大多数休闲活动因锁定而受到抑制，但其他活动却蓬勃发展-只是问问与Adrienne一起做瑜伽的任何朋友(可能是酿造自己的康普茶的同一个朋友)。 另一个不太可能的赢家？ 约会应用。 仅Tinder和Bumble的使用量就激增了20％以上，仅Tinder在3月28日就记录了30亿次滑动。

However, the pandemic only accelerated a trend that was already in full force: finding love via apps. “Met online” is now the most common way that people report finding their significant other, streets ahead of boring old classics like “met in church” or “met in the neighbourhood”. While there are a range of massively popular dating apps, including Bumble and Grindr, Tinder continues to be the most popular platform by a significant margin. That gives the company a pretty crazy level of influence over how young people date and, yes, who they match with.

但是，这种大流行只会加速一种已经充分发挥作用的趋势：通过应用查找爱情。 现在， “在线约会”是人们报告找到自己重要的其他街道的最普遍方式，而这条街道要优先于无聊的经典之作，例如“在教堂里遇见”或“在社区里遇见”。 尽管有一系列非常流行的约会应用程序，包括Bumble和Grindr，但Tinder仍然是相当受欢迎的最受欢迎的平台。 这给公司带来了相当疯狂的影响力，使他们对年轻人的约会方式以及与之相匹配的人产生了很大的影响。

欢迎来到您的个人“理想”分数 (Welcome to your personal ‘desirability’ score)

Make no mistake: nothing about the Tinder algorithm is random. When you open the app to get swiping, you might think that the profiles you are seeing are just a random bunch of people that fit your age/gender preferences and live relatively close. Think again. Tinder wants to match as many couples as possible and designs its algorithm to put certain profiles in front of you. Of course, you’re free to swipe right to your heart’s delight and ignore the people Tinder recommends, but the algorithm penalises you for swiping left too much. So how does Tinder decide whose profiles to show you?

没错：关于Tinder算法的一切都是随机的。 当您打开该应用进行刷卡时，您可能会认为您所看到的个人资料只是一群符合您的年龄/性别偏好并且生活相对较近的人。 再想一想。 Tinder希望匹配尽可能多的夫妻，并设计其算法以将某些配置文件摆在您面前。 当然，您可以随意向右滑动，而不必理会Tinder推荐的人，但是该算法会因向左滑动太多而受到惩罚。 那么，Tinder如何确定向您显示谁的个人资料？

A few years ago, Tinder made the mistake of showing a journalist what was actually under the algorithm’s hood — and it wasn’t pretty. As that journalist details, the Tinder algorithm allocates every user a personalised ‘desirability’ score, to represent how much of a catch any particular person is. Users are then sorted into ‘tiers’ based on their desirability score, and that was, in essence, the algorithm: you get presented with people approximately your level of attractiveness when you swipe.

几年前，Tinder犯了一个错误，向记者展示了该算法背后的实际内容–这并不漂亮。 正如记者详细介绍的那样，Tinder算法为每个用户分配了个性化的“合意性”分数，以表示任何特定人员的捕获量。 然后，根据用户的满意度得分将其分类为“等级”，实际上，这就是算法：滑动时，向您展示的对象大致与您的吸引力程度有关。

(As an aside, the whole article is worth reading as a slow-moving train wreck — Tinder CEO Sean Rad boasts about his own desirability score as “above average” before defending the scores as not solely determined by profile pictures. The journalist is informed that his personal score is “on the upper end of average” in a hall-of-fame calibre neg, and the CEO helpfully notes that they intentionally called the score “desirability”, not “attractiveness”. Not all heroes wear capes, dear readers).

(顺便说一句，整篇文章值得一读，它是一部缓慢移动的火车残骸-Tinder CEO肖恩·拉德(Sean Rad)声称自己的期望得分为“高于平均水平”，然后才捍卫得分，而不仅仅是根据个人资料图片确定得分。记者被告知他的个人得分“上的平均上端”在霍尔的成名口径NEG和CEO有益指出，他们故意叫分数“愿望”，而不是“吸引力”。不是所有的英雄穿着斗篷，亲爱的读者)。

How does Tinder work out how desirable (read: hot) you are? Using a so-called “ELO” system, inspired by how chess players are ranked (yes, really!) It’s pretty simple: if people swipe right on you, your desirability score goes up, and it goes down if people instead give your profile a pass. If someone with a high score swipes right for you, that increases your score more than someone with lower “desirability”. This is problematic in all kinds of ways, not least of which being that Tinder is shamelessly focused on physical appearance. Bios are tiny and the app instead encourages you to upload multiple high-quality photos. You can’t blame this journalist for wondering whether their desirability score was an objective measure of how good looking they were.

Tinder如何确定您的理想程度(阅读：热门)？ 使用所谓的“ ELO”系统，灵感来自下棋者的排名方式(是的，真的！ )。这很简单：如果人们向右滑动，您的期望值就会上升，而如果人们给您提供个人资料，它的价值就会下降通过。 如果分数较高的人为您正确滑动，则分数会比“愿望”较低的人增加更多。 这在所有方面都存在问题，尤其是Tinder无耻地专注于物理外观。 BIOS很小，因此该应用鼓励您上传多张高质量的照片。 您不能责怪这位记者想知道他们的可取性得分是否是对他们外表美观的客观衡量。

Understandably, Tinder has furiously back-tracked from the disastrous PR of dividing its users into looks-based tiers. However, while in this blog post it calls its ELO-rating system “old news”, the company concedes it still uses the same basic mechanic of showing you different sets of profiles depending on how many swipes you’re getting. It seems like the only real change to Tinder’s algorithm is to incorporate more machine learning — so the app tries to learn what you like based on the profiles you swipe right on, and show you more of those profiles. Again, however, the company will only show you people it thinks are reasonably likely to swipe on you.

可以理解的是，Tinder疯狂地撤回了将其用户划分为基于外观的层的灾难性PR。 但是，尽管在此博客文章中称其ELO评分系统为“旧消息”，但该公司承认，它仍然使用相同的基本机制，根据获得的滑动次数向您显示不同的配置文件集。 似乎Tinder算法唯一真正的变化就是结合了更多的机器学习功能-因此该应用程序会根据您在其上滑动的配置文件尝试学习您喜欢的内容，并向您显示更多这些配置文件。 但是，公司只会再次向您显示认为有可能向您滑动的人员。

因此，人工智能正在决定我应该和谁一起出去？ (So an AI is deciding who I should go out with?)

Yep. Sure, you get to swipe left or right, and decide what to message (please do better than these people), but Tinder’s algorithm decides which few of the thousands of nearby profiles to show you in the first place and which of those people are seeing your profile. This AI is like the world’s most controlling wingman, who doesn’t necessarily want you to shoot for your dream partner. Instead, they’ll actively push you towards people they think are more in your league.

是的当然，您可以向左或向右滑动，并确定要发消息的内容(请比这些人做得更好)，但是Tinder的算法决定了首先要向您显示的数千个个人资料中的哪几个，以及哪些人在看您的个人资料。 这款AI就像是世界上控制最多的翼人，他不一定要您为理想的伴侣射击。 相反，他们会积极地将您推向他们认为在您的联赛中地位更高的人。

Remember, we are talking about the number one way that young people meet each other: Tinder’s algorithm has an outsized influence on how couples form in modern life. It doesn’t seem great if the most prolific Cupid in human history works by subdividing its users like a ‘Hot or Not?’ game show and then pairing them off.

记住，我们谈论的是年轻人彼此相遇的第一方式：Tinder的算法对现代生活中夫妻的形成方式产生了巨大影响。 如果人类历史上最多产的丘比特通过像“热还是不热”这样细分用户，这似乎并不好。 游戏节目，然后将它们配对。

For the sake of balance, it’s important to note that I don’t think Tinder is inherently evil, or that it represents any kind of “dating apocalypse”. After all, it’s not like physical appearance doesn’t matter when you’re looking at who to date — in some ways, the engineers at Tinder have just made a more efficient and ruthless model of what happens in the real world anyway. Tinder certainly thinks its platform is good for society, dropping stats like this one which suggests online dating has increased the number of interracial marriages.

为了保持平衡，必须注意，我认为Tinder本质上不是邪恶的，或者它代表任何形式的“约会启示”。 毕竟，当您查看谁时，这并不意味着物理外观无关紧要-在某些方面，Tinder的工程师只是对现实世界中发生的事情做了更有效，更残酷的模型。 Tinder肯定认为其平台对社会有利，因此放弃了此类统计数据，这表明在线约会增加了异族通婚的数量。

The company also argues that perceptions of Tinder as a hook-up app are flatly wrong. I note that my best friend is in a happy long-term relationship with someone he met on Tinder and the odds aren’t bad that yours is, too — 74% of Tinder users report having a long-term relationship, compared to 49% of offline daters.

该公司还辩称，将Tinder视为一个连接应用程序是完全错误的。 我注意到我最好的朋友与他在Tinder上认识的某人建立了幸福的长期关系，而且您也很可能与对方保持良好关系-74％的Tinder用户表示有长期关系，而49％离线约会者。

To me, this is the real story about why Tinder’s algorithm matters — not because it fails to match people into relationships, but because it does; with pretty remarkable success. Dating apps are responsible for how most young couples now meet. That means that issues with the algorithm have very real consequences for those young people.

对我来说，这是关于Tinder算法为何重要的真实故事-不是因为它无法使人与人相处，而是因为它确实如此； 取得了非凡的成功约会应用程序负责现在大多数年轻夫妇的约会方式。 这意味着算法问题对那些年轻人有非常实际的影响。

For instance, take the concerns that the dating apps’ algorithms have biases against black women and Asian men. Not only is the very concept of “desirability” a questionable one to build an algorithm around, but Tinder and other apps display a pretty loaded idea of what “desirable” tends to look like. Of course, these issues are nothing new, but it’s pretty troubling for these biases to be built into the algorithms that now run modern dating. Even Tinder’s leadership recognises the scale of these challenges. Jonathan Badeen, Tinder’s senior vice president of product, told a reporter about the app:

例如，以关注的约会应用程序的算法有对黑人女性和亚裔男性的偏见。 不仅“可取性”这一概念成为围绕算法构建的一个可质疑的概念，而且Tinder和其他应用程序对“可取的”趋向于如何表现出了很多想法。 当然，这些问题并不是什么新鲜事物，但是要在现在运行现代约会的算法中内置这些偏见却很麻烦。 即使是Tinder的领导层也意识到这些挑战的规模。 Tinder产品高级副总裁Jonathan Badeen向记者介绍了该应用程序：

“It’s scary to know how much it’ll affect people. I try to ignore some of it, or I’ll go insane. We’re getting to the point where we have a social responsibility to the world because we have this power to influence it.”

“令人震惊的是，它会影响到人们。 我试图忽略其中的一些，否则我会发疯的。 我们正在走向对世界负有社会责任的地步，因为我们有影响世界的力量。”

Sure, it’s easy to wonder how a company that recognises this deep “social responsibility to the world” could have also built a system that allocates users a “desirability” score. But the broader picture here is more important, with AI being used to make decisions and classify us in ways we don’t know and probably wouldn’t expect.

当然，很容易想知道，一家公司意识到这种深刻的“对世界的社会责任”也可以建立一个为用户分配“可取性”评分的系统。 但是这里更广泛的图景更为重要，因为人工智能被用来以我们不知道并且可能不会期望的方式进行决策和分类。

For all we think of love as a personal, intimate thing, the reality is that love is increasingly engineered by a few programmers in Silicon Valley. As it turns out, love can ultimately boil down to a coding challenge. There’s something quite depressing about that, but it appears that little will slow down the ascent of Tinder’s AI as the world’s most prolific wingman. It’s not yet clear what the full consequences will be from delegating some of our romantic decision-making to an algorithm.

就我们所有将爱视为私人的私密事物而言，现实是爱越来越多地由硅谷的一些程序员设计。 事实证明，爱情最终可以归结为编码挑战。 令人有些沮丧的是，但似乎没有什么会减慢Tinder的AI作为世界上最多产的边锋的崛起的速度。 尚不清楚将我们一些浪漫的决策委托给算法会带来什么全部后果。

翻译自: https://medium.com/@mattjbartlett/how-tinders-ai-micromanages-your-dating-life-aee76f8b2cf0