When a relationship ends, it's really common to wonder where exactly things went wrong. But 26-year-old Alex Weitzman's curiosity about what led to the demise of her last relationship is on a whole other level.
Alex recently finished her Master's in Computer Science at Stanford, so she turned to technology to work out her dating woes. In a TikTok that's been viewed over 700,000 times, she explains, "I was wondering why I'm still single and I decided to use AI to analyze my texts to my ex to try and figure out what's wrong with me."
Then, she realized she had to share her invention with the world. "It was so good that I decided to make this into a website. The website is TextsFromMyEx.com. You can go here, upload any conversation from WhatsApp or download our Mac app for iMessage. And then you just go in put in any contact name, press analyze, and then you'll get an analysis kind of like this."
Then she showed some of what the AI had to say about what went wrong in her last relationship. "So my ex and I are 37% compatible, and it totally roasted us. Like, apparently, we have a horrible attachment styles and communication, negative one sexiness, a few highlights (one out of ten), and it also even tells you why it'll never work. Try it out and let me know what you think."
In the comments, people who've tried it shared their results, from pretty okay at 72%:
To not-so-hot at 44%:
Some commenters were also concerned about privacy. However, the site's privacy policy states, "We do not upload or store your chat messages on our servers. The chat messages are sent securely to the OpenAI API for analysis, but they are not saved in our database. We store the final analysis results in our database, for the purpose of allowing you to share your results with a unique link."
In the name of science, I decided to use Alex's brave new invention to take a look at my current relationship to see if there's anything I can learn from the AI. There's currently a pretty long waitlist for the mobile app on an iPhone, so I downloaded the app onto my MacBook instead and gave it a go.
I was really curious to see if the AI was tuned to analyzing newer relationships where the texts come fast and furious or if it's also useful in a longer-term situation. I've been with my partner for seven years, we live together, and our recent text convos tend to be more tactical and practical than they were in the flirty early days. So I was honestly expecting the AI to drag us for being totally boring.
But that wasn't the case at all! It only took a few seconds to generate my results and text me a report with a 74% compatibility score. I loved how it highlighted some mundane but cute moments between us that I hadn't thought much about before. It also flagged my anxious-avoidant attachment and gave me a couple of things to think about. Overall, I was genuinely surprised by how fun and seamless the whole experience was and I went on to analyze my texts with my mom and one of my best friends, just for kicks.
I did have a couple of critiques. It seems to have a baked-in assumption that the person doing the analysis is a woman curious about her relationship with a man. I'd love to see a version in the future where users can input their pronouns and their partner's so the results page can better match the relationship. And, due to AI's current limitations, I found some of its comments on emotions and sexiness to be kinda hilariously off-base. But on the whole, it was really fun to play with and I'll be thinking about what it told me for a long time.
Alex told BuzzFeed, "I just finished my master's at Stanford in computer science, where I studied AI. I also won awards as an undergrad at Stanford for my psychology research on dating apps and built an audio dating app called Amori that got two couples engaged. Then, I had an idea to use AI to learn about you from conversations, in order to help you find the love of your life. And Texts From My Ex was just an experiment as I'm building that bigger vision, but I did not expect it to blow up like it did!"
And she explained in a bit more detail how it works. "It works by uploading your conversations from iMessage or WhatsApp. Then it gives you a hilarious analysis full of relationship insights, a compatibility ranking, and scores on your attachment styles, communication skills, sexiness, and even why it'll never work (spoiler alert: I might be the problem). It works best on exes, but can also work on people you're currently dating, or even your mom." If you're curious, it gave me and my mom a sexiness score of 5/10 because we "lack passion" but have obvious affection for each other, so do with that info what you will.
Alex also shared her perspective on AI after finishing her studies. "Many people are resisting advancements in AI, and it's understandable. The world is starting to change very quickly, and it's pretty scary. I think we should be prudent but also learn to accept that there are about to be some major societal changes with this new technology."
And she talked about how AI is already a part of the dating experience — and how it could become even more involved in the future. "AI already learns our type when we're swiping on dating apps. But it's yet to really learn about us on a deeper level. What I'm excited to keep building is ways to learn about you from your conversations to really improve the dating experience. Using AI, we can deeply get to know users and run simulations to find your perfect match, like that Black Mirror episode Hang the DJ."
"We can also use AI as a dating coach to help us date better, giving us advice and helping us navigate the dating journey. I think that's still missing from current dating apps, and the experience today can feel pretty lonely."
Finally, she opened up a bit about her experiences in STEM. "As a woman in STEM and a solo female founder, I often find myself in rooms full of men, which sometimes feels isolating! But I'm excited for more women to go into STEM so we can build more products that solve our own problems. Like Texts From My Ex. Or my potential next idea — F*ckboy Detector." (Alex, please make the F-boy Detector. The world needs your vision.)
