This Is How We Do It: AI Found Me A Wife (Valentine's Day Special)

Allow me to introduce This Is How We Do It, our new occasional sidebar exploring love in the age of dystopia.Aleksandr, a tech-savvy young man from Russia, used AI to automate his Tinder profile, but what started as a wild experiment in modern dating turned into a love story for the digital age. Aleksandr and his fiancée Karina join me for a chat about their courtship and relationship, a fascinating and heart-warming story perfect for sharing on Valentine’s Day.You can find an English language ‘how’ of Aleksandr’s AI odyssey on X. I was drawn to the story more from the angle of wondering how such a technical approach could still allow love to flower and grow between two people, and I was keen to hear Karina’s thoughts and feelings about the way Aleksandr ‘found’ her.In our conversation, Aleksandr describes how he went about optimising his Tinder account with AI to speed up the initial stages of finding matches, Karina talks about how it feels knowing that she was “more perfect” than over 5,000 other women, and they open up about their life together in the AI era.Even though I brought my own pre-conceptions to the table, speaking with them was warm and uplifting, and in a way the technology ended up taking a back seat to an exploration of what in the end are universal human needs and desires.As you’ll hear, I also suggested that they reach out to OpenAI to pay for their wedding, since their story is probably the nicest use of ChatGPT that I’ve heard of so far. Maybe our community has the means to make that happen for them, who knows?Anyway, I hope you enjoy the episode.Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com