Georgia Tech’s deep love for CS and machine learning has inevitably led to the Love Machine: a
32-question survey that asks questions about your demographics and interests in hopes of matching you
with another student. The Agency, our machine learning club, developed an algorithm, which has
matched more then 800 students since the first survey went up in 2019. The questions range from asking
about your major to whether you would share homework answers with your friend if they were struggling
in class. In hopes of getting a peek into a person’s values and personality traits, the Love Machine survey
is quickly becoming a fun tradition at Tech.
After finding out about the survey, my friends jokingly told me to fill it out just to see what would
happen. Without thinking twice, I filled it out and didn’t think about it again until an email popped up in
my inbox a few weeks later. I opened the email to see a black banner with a white heading saying:
“YOUR MATCHES ARE HERE!” In a world where dating apps are ingrained in people’s phones, it
seemed like a familiar announcement. I followed the instructions laid out and messaged the phone number
attached to a faceless name in my inbox. Two minutes later, he replied! We quickly realized we had been
in the same math class since the Fall semester. Texts turned into following each other on Instagram then
meeting up to study at a cramped desk in CULC. With every conversation, I saw how alike we were in the
things that mattered the most to me. How did an algorithm get it so right?
It’s been two months since we met and we have a running joke about how the CS gods brought us
together. Did the survey work its machine learning magic or was it an occurrence of serendipity?
Whatever it was that brought him into my life has made me believe even more in the power of trying
things at least once. A place like Georgia Tech has and will have so many opportunities for students to get
out of their comfort zones and live life outside of lecture halls. I took a shot at a survey and ended up
meeting one of the best people I’ve ever known. As the survey gets modified throughout the years, it’ll be
interesting to see the new couples formed and how machine learning can branch out into other aspects of
everyday life on campus.