Computer love

Hu Xuejun / China Daily

Unlucky in love? Never fear, big data is breaking down the mysteries of romance to help singles find their perfect, mathematical, match. Wang Chenxi, Quan Xiaoshu and Qu Ting of China Features take a look at what happens when one plus one equals two.

In Xiaofei's new home in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, the newly-married engineer hangs on the wall a very special picture - a screenshot of the dialog between him and his wife Aibi in an online game five years ago.

Thanks to the game, Xiaofei, who was then studying in Leipzig, Germany, got to know Aibi, who was then working in China. The two soon fell in love and Xiaofei later decided to go back to China to be with her.

Both Xiaofei and Aibi believe their marriage is a unique miracle. But Xia Tianyu hears stories just like theirs everyday in Huatian Community, an online dating company affiliated with Chinese Internet giant Netease. Xia, the company's general manager, and his 30-member team are trying to demystify love with the help of big data.

"This is a typical case of behavioral analysis leading to accurate demand," he says. In Xiaofei's case, the game provides a dialog channel for people with similar behaviors, such as hobbies, personalities and ways of expression. If man and woman with matching indices happen to be single and seeking love, their online conversation will result in "accurate demand" - dating and everything after that.

Xia, an Oracle expert who is well-versed in database management, believes all things that seem unpredictable and subjective, love for example, can be measured by big data, including "hard indices" like age, height, weight, income and educational background, as well as "soft indices" like language, personality, social preference, reading preference, online duration and even horoscope.

Liu Cixin, one of China's most celebrated sci-fi writers, also believes big data can be quite useful in helping people find their other half. "I once read an article saying that every person on the Earth may, in theory, fall in love with 600,000 others. It sounds amazing, but how many of the 600,000 will the person have the chance to meet in reality? I think there are very few."

"Big data can pick out potential dating pairs from a very large pool, which is more accurate than traditional match-making, and give them chance to meet and communicate," Liu says.

American mathematician Christopher McKinlay famously demonstrated how successful big data can be in the pursuit of love.

McKinlay opened several accounts on the dating site OKCupid, and selected 6 million questionnaire answers from 20,000 registered women. He wrote programs to pick out 5,000 active users and narrowed the pool down by indices suitable for marriage.

Within 90 days, he used his optimized algorithm to find his match, an artist who later became his fiancee.