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What Now? With Trevor NoahThe Perfect Algorithm for Finding Love? with Christian Rudder | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast
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Christian Rudder's Return and Why He Went Quiet
Christian Rudder explains he nearly thought the invitation was a scam, having stayed out of media for about ten years. He says he couldn't handle the constant talking-at on Twitter. Trevor Noah frames him as someone whose work many people should be grateful for.
- •Rudder had done little media in a decade and doubted the invitation was real
- •He found Twitter and online commentary too much to deal with
- •Noah says many people may be in relationships or exist as a product of his work
From SparkNotes to OkCupid: Early Online Dating
Rudder describes how OkCupid grew out of SparkMatch, a profile-browsing feature at SparkNotes, and launched in 2003 when finding people online was hard. Noah recalls dial-up and basic chat clients, and calls Rudder one of the forefathers of today's connected internet.
- •SparkMatch at SparkNotes let users browse people instead of content and crashed the site
- •OkCupid launched in 2003 as essentially the same idea under a new name
- •Noah recalls dial-up, IRC and AOL-era chat
- •Noah frames Rudder as a founding figure of internet connection
Profiles Versus Swiping: What Modern Apps Lost
A speaker notes that OkCupid required writing about yourself, while Rudder says Tinder and Bumble compressed everything into a photo. He grades online dating a C minus, pointing to Tinder's drop in active users and people quitting the apps.
- •OkCupid had profiles, photos and match questions on topics like kids and abortion rights
- •Swipe apps compress everything to a selfie and likely deliver worse matches
- •Rudder gives online dating a C minus despite its popularity
- •Tinder fell from about 13 million to 8 million monthly users, with no replacement platform absorbing them
Efficiency, Infinite Choice and the Swipe Habit
Noah argues apps make people swipe more the way Amazon makes people shop more, and that efficiency has been applied to something that isn't efficient. Love and friendship, he says, come through gradual attrition.
- •Anything that lets people do more makes them do more, like bigger bags of chips
- •People are searching for a love story, not being nefarious
- •Noah says love and connections aren't efficient
- •He compares friendships to rocks becoming pebbles in a tumbler
Data Versus Stated Beliefs: Race on OkCupid
Noah cites Rudder's book Dataclysm on data revealing what people do rather than what they say. The conversation turns to his analysis of racial preferences and why dating apps are a candid window into society.
- •Surveys capture how people want to think they feel, while data shows behavior
- •Data showed Black women and Asian men received the fewest responses
- •Rudder says some Black women were grateful to have a number attached to their experience
- •The pattern was much weaker outside the US, such as the UK
- •Apps give little incentive to lie, so they are honest data
Age Preferences and the Limits of What Data Can Explain
Rudder explains that men and women state similar age ranges, but men's messaging skews toward 20-year-olds while women message their own age. Noah questions whether social pressure explains this, and Rudder says data and algorithms can't know a person as well as they know themselves, which is why OkCupid shut down a machine-learning matching program.
- •Both genders state similar age ranges, but men message 20-year-olds even at 50
- •Noah suggests social constraints may shape women's behavior
- •OkCupid shut down a machine-learning program because the person on the date was the final arbiter
- •People have unquantifiable qualities like how they laugh or carry themselves
How AI Could Strengthen the User's Voice in Dating
Asked how new AI could change matching, Rudder says he wouldn't try to build a perfect match but would use AI to learn about users through conversation. He calls Tinder an infinite can of Pringles and imagines something like a life coach.
- •Rudder doesn't believe in an AI finding the perfect person
- •AI could converse with users to make their voice stronger in the algorithm
- •Tinder and Bumble let the algorithm do all the work
- •He imagines something like a life coach if people would put up with it
Doubts About Tech in Dating and the Profit Motive
Noah contrasts Rudder's doubt with tech leaders' certainty. Rudder worries about the infinite can making every choice feel like settling, yet likes that dating apps aim to get people offline. They discuss closure, and Rudder says a healthier app would probably need to be privately held.
- •Infinite options may be psychologically unhealthy and make settling hard
- •Dating apps, unlike other social platforms, aim to get users into the real world
- •People have always hated dating and complained about every app
- •Noah says people love finding but hate searching, and compares it to closure at funerals
- •Rudder says public ownership changed the tone after IAC bought OkCupid in 2011, and a healthier app would likely be private
Politics, Values and Matching on What Matters
The group discusses how polarization complicates dating and how Hinge is ascendant by gathering more information. Noah recalls Rudder's finding that agreeing on political engagement mattered more than party, and a speaker proposes matching on ranked values. Rudder imagines asking about and inferring values to see how well people know themselves.
- •Hinge lets users search by politics and has risen to number two
- •Apps can only use predictors like political engagement if they ask
- •Noah says Rudder's data showed agreement on political engagement mattered more than party
- •A speaker argues shared ranking of values predicts lasting couples, and notes arranged marriages worked through shared context
- •Rudder proposes comparing stated values, inferred values and how well they match
Photos, the Blind Dating Experiments and Instagram's Influence
Rudder describes turning off OkCupid photos for a day, which produced healthier messaging but user outrage, and a failed blind-dating app with scrambled photos. Noah recalls that when pictures returned, conversations stopped. A speaker raises Instagram's effect on men's expectations, and Rudder says apps struggle to change preferences.
- •Turning off photos led to healthier conversations but angry users
- •The scrambled-photo app drew a quarter million downloads but only about 10,000 dates
- •Conversations died when pictures came back on
- •Rudder says apps can't easily nudge users away from Instagram-shaped preferences without losing them
- •He says apps amplify what people already bring
Living by Data: Intuition, Certainty and Why Dataclysm Was Published
Rudder says he tries to live by intuition and distrusts false certainty from numbers, though he enjoys data storytelling like analyzing the Beatles. He explains he published OkCupid's data during a hopeful 2009–2010 internet era and later saw data used for political manipulation.
- •Rudder thinks a perfect love algorithm is impossible
- •Numbers give a false sense of certainty, as with a 9.3 attractiveness score
- •He published the data in a hopeful, pre-Cambridge Analytica era
- •He had not foreseen data being used to sell worldviews at scale
- •Seeing your own data, such as screen time, can prompt honest self-reflection
The Dark Side of Data and How Apps Choose Who You See
Noah and a speaker point out data's downsides, including misleading screen time and anxiety from a baby monitor. Noah then asks how apps balance who you want to see versus who you should, and Rudder explains the focus problem and the mix of attractiveness, questions and randomness.
- •Screen time can count driving navigation and mislead
- •Noah says metrics like 10,000 steps can be unreliable
- •A baby-monitor app can make a parent more paranoid
- •Showing everyone the hottest users creates a death spiral
- •Rudder describes a matching mix of attractiveness band, compatibility questions and randomness
- 1:01:13 – 1:05:38
Practical Advice for Dating App Users
Rudder advises against group photos and says you only need one person to say yes, so be authentic and feature what makes you unique. He urges taking more risks on people who aren't your usual type, accepting that dating is hard, and de-gamifying apps rather than spray-and-pray swiping.
- •Avoid group photos because they confuse who you are
- •You only need one vote, so don't engineer your profile for more likes
- •Foreground what makes you unique and take risks on people outside your type
- •Dating generally sucks, and the apps aren't solely to blame
- •Apps should reward selective liking over swiping right on everyone, though Rudder doubts they do
Publisher timestamps
- 0:00Starbucks sponsor message
- 3:32Origins of OkCupid and early online datingRead this chapter
- 14:23Data insights revealing dating patterns and preferences
- 28:50Challenges of modern dating apps and user behaviorRead this chapter
- 37:53Importance of shared values in relationshipsRead this chapter
- 47:16Limitations and proper use of dating data
- 57:28Behind-the-scenes of dating app algorithms
