Predictive text and neural networks have gotten crazy good in the past few years, to the extent that I would actually consider turning them on from time to time. But should you let a computer that knows your writing habits make you a dating profile? Oh hell no.
As a fun thought experiment/viral marketing exercise, the maker of the popular third-party keyboard Swiftkey has made a mock online dating form, and are encouraging people to fill it out using only predictive text. Swiftkey gives you the choice of three predicted words, so it’s not a complete shit-show; even so, my predicted dating profile is only vaguely coherent:
I completed the profile using Swiftkey’s neural network keyboard, which may explain some of the weirder responses. You can (and should!) go complete the form yourself, using any smartphone with a predictive keyboard. In fact, feel free to do it a few times — perhaps we can decide once and for all which smartphone keyboard would make the best wingman.
[Swiftkey]