each user three choices each week: a Gold, Silver, or Bronze match. Naturally, the Gold option was meant to correspond to the exchange participant calculated to be the most likely match-up; the Silver option was the second-most likely; and the Bronze the third-most likely.
In order to satisfy the partner mandate, the individual participant would either have to certify that she was in a relationship heading toward serious commitment or go out on at least one date each week with the Gold, Silver, or Bronze option of that week.
The system seemed eminently rational. Experts making the decisions, supplied with a wealth of information beyond the dreams of the most pervasive marketing firm, running a market populated by every person within the reach of the American legal system, thanks to the partner mandate.
The dating model generated for use on DateEx.gov was one of the most complicated behavioral models ever devised. It factored in hundreds of variables, from television viewing preferences to height to cuisine preferences. The model attempted to account for what individual users claimed to think was important, modifying the algorithms themselves to cater to the users’ needs.
The result was a monument to bureaucratic hubris. The website itself did not work for two months, resulting in panicked postponements of enforcement of the partnership mandate. Once the website was up and running, it was clear that the models were completely inadequate to the task of matching people up correctly.
The system sparked literally millions of absurd anecdotes, running the gamut from hilarious to absurd to terrifying. One twenty-five year old man’s Gold match in his second week on the exchange was a ninety year old woman who happened to share his love of Thai