Tinder. The first thing that comes to my mind whenever I hear it mentioned, is swipe left. Always. Some, more experienced Tinderers, however may disagree. I’ve never been one for online dating so my opinion, some may say, is null and void. In case your new to the game (or just to the conversation), Tinder is a dating app that presents you with a profile of other users in your area. A couple of pictures and a short tagline/description is shown, and then it’s up to you to decide if you’re “into them,” by either swiping right if you are, left if you aren’t.
It’s basically fool-proof, which is why Nicole He, a graduate student in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, has invented a robot to do the dirty work. The True Love Tinder Robot is a rubber hand that does the swiping for users who are in search of a soul mate.
So how does this robot know if you’re into them or not? It’s all in the palm sweat. Seriously! The sweat from your palms plays an integral part in the robot’s swiping decisions.
To get the bot working for you, you simply open the Tinder app on your phone, place it in the phone mount, and then place your hands inside the palm-shaped sensors. Once the sensors can feel the heat of your palm, it will activate and speak.
“Hello, human. I am True Love Tinder Robot. I’m going to help you find love,” in a Russian-accented computer voice.
A potential partner will appear on the app and, based on your galvanic skin response, aka how sweaty your palms get, the robot will make a decision for you.
The robot is essentially looking for a big change in your body’s response. If you react more, or sweat more, it means you’re excited or attracted to the picture and swipes right. Less sweat, or no sweat at all means that you’re not into the user, and the robot will swipe left for you.
It’s not actually measuring how much you sweat, rather the change in your skins response over time, so naturally sweaty people will not have a skewed outcome.
Let’s talk details: what’s this little bot made of? Well it’s basically LEDs, a couple sheets of metal acting as galvanic skin response sensors, a bunch of wires, a box, and a speaker. Oh and the creator mentions that she programmed an Arduino to do the heavy lifting. But, she mentions, getting a touch-screen phone to respond to her robot’s rubber hand was not easy.
So now that you’ve got the low down, would you let a robot swipe for you?
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)