What would the ideal dating app look like?

Croesus was a king in ancient Greece who — legend has it — possessed unlimited wealth. He's the inspiration for a design technique known as What would Croesus do?

The idea is to brainstorm the best possible product — given an unlimited budget and possibly fictional technology — to provide the ultimate experience for the user.

Then, starting from this imaginary product, figure out what you can actually implement — at a reasonable cost — with existing technology. It's often surprising how close you can get.

Science fiction dating

So, what would the ideal dating product look like?

The concept we came up with was a machine that scans you — your mind, your body, your deepest desires — and learns everything about you. Then it thinks for a while and recommends a person for you.

It assures you that you will be attracted to this person, and they will be attracted to you. And, realistically, neither of you are going to do any better. So you should get in touch.

How it arrives at that recommendation doesn't really matter. It could do Black Mirror style virtual simulations. It could grow clones and send them on dates. It's not relevant to the user.

Then it's a question of what's possible with existing technology. That's the subject of another post.

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