By Van Badham
Publication Date: 2026-02-23 23:16:00
The Guardian reported on the arrival of Fate and, friends, I laughed. Or maybe I cried.
It is apparently the first “agentic AI dating app”. An AI personality called “Fate” interviews users, performs data matching on their hopes and dreams, and then suggests five possible matches based on the hard data of observable complementary language patterns: “No swiping required!”
This was followed by similar AI-based matching platforms such as Sitch and Keeper in the USA. In platform variants, you can detail preference data down to hair color, you can let the animated electronic voice of a record coach you on how to approach your date, and you can weep over the end of human relationships and the loveless wasteland of consumer narcissism we have created for ourselves. When the most profound and transformative human emotion is an automated transaction in an online store, the techlords have won.
In the depths of my growing neo-Luddite despair, I must admit that in what now…