Sphygmograph Be Damned: The Science of Love
2/13/202642 min
Chris McKinlay is a good-looking, smart student at UCLA, but he can't seem to get a girlfriend. He's a computing expert, so why not use his technology prowess to supercharge his search for a soulmate? He starts building an army of bots and unleashes them into the world of online dating. Chris' search for love leads him to some unexpected places, and it might be teaching us all the wrong lessons about love.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. When a young woman's car is found abandoned on a New Jersey bridge, detectives wanna know how did she simply vanish into the night?
Speaker 10:13
Nobody knew where she was. It was a 19-year-old girl who would've normally been attached to her phone, and she was off the grid.
Speaker 00:22
Secrets, trust, and a friend's ultimate betrayal. I'm Juju Chang. From 2020 and ABC Audio, listen now to Bridge of Lies wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 20:36
[intro music] Pushkin.
Tim Harford· Host0:43
Chris McKinley popped open a second window on his desktop computer and checked for messages from OkCupid. [keyboard clicking] [computer pings] Oh, dear, oh dear. Yet again, his favorite online dating website was offering tumbleweed. That didn't seem right. Chris was a catch. He was smart, a degree in Chinese, a master's in mathematics, and he was nearly through a PhD in data science, which was why he was sitting in front of a computer screen in a cramped cubicle in a deserted open plan office at UCLA's Mathematics Sciences Building at