Scientist Rashied Amini Invents "The Love Algorithm"

Dubbed as “The Love Algorithm” by TMM, St. Louis Scientist, Rashid Amini, has created a Revolutionary, Scientifically Based, App That Makes Predictions and Suggestions for Finding Love.

Scientist Rashied Amini Invents "The Love Algorithm"

Dubbed as "The Love Algorithm" by TMM, St. Louis Scientist, Rashid Amini, has created a Revolutionary, Scientifically Based, App That Makes Predictions and Suggestions for Finding Love.

Rashied Amini, a former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Systems Engineer, has developed a ground-breaking new app, which can help people gain insight into their love lives. Nanaya has participants answer a series of questions. The app then provides a report, making suggestions and providing information to the person. This is not just another online dating or matchmaking program. It's a carefully designed app that uses algorithms to predict your odds of finding love, where and when it will happen, the best time to settle down, and more.

Check this out at www.nanaya.co.

"I created Nanaya to encourage honesty and to bring people together. Looking at your possible futures is like gazing into a magic mirror. It supports self-awareness."

Would you consider yourself a scientist or inventor? Can you elaborate?

"Great question. To be a scientist is to be an inventor in many ways. Instead of inventing a new thing, like the phone or even a technology, you invent new theories about how the universe, life, and how society works. Both also have to demonstrate the value of their invention, whether by selling it or by proving it actually describes reality. As an engineer and a scientist, I constantly find myself doing both."

What was your drive to go to college to originally become a systems engineer?

"I wanted to be a physicist when I went to college, but by the time I finished I found myself more inclined toward engineering. Even as I took my job as an engineer at NASA JPL, I planned on returning for my Ph.D. in physics if only because I'm passionate about knowing how the universe works."

It must have been exciting when you got the job as a NASA Jet Propulsion Lab systems engineer.

"When I finished high school I wanted to work at NASA JPL and be an astrophysicist – so when I was offered my job I was ecstatic. I wasn't an astrophysicist, though. I was brought on as a systems engineer, which is a bit like a Swiss Army knife. You are given a problem, any problem, and you find a way to solve. First you consider a problem, look at the "system" of the problem: why does the problem exist? what is there about the problem that you know and don't know? what potential solutions exist? what is required for each solution and what impacts do they have? Second, you have to find the best way to all the possible solutions. It's 11th dimension chess."

"For the most part, my job was brainstorming and thinking. I helped lead testing and developed our operations concept of the first use of "interplanetary internet," worked to find ways to reduce the cost of building Moon and Mars bases, planned NASA's expected future use of nuclear power, and a lot of other projects, some of which were my own, like inventing a way to get samples from comets and asteroids without ever landing on them."

"JPL is an amazing, one-of-a-kind place. It's all about the mission and teamwork. If you need the world's leading expert in something, you pick up the phone or walk to their office and they're happy to help. If you're in a meeting, it's always about doing the best work possible and not being right. When I was at JPL, the Curiosity rover was being built in the building next to mine. I went weekly to look at the progress of it slowly coming together. There's nowhere else in the universe you can do that."

We would think working alongside other engineers and scientists would be interesting.

"My first project at JPL was coordinating the testing and developing operations for "Interplanetary Internet." For someone fresh out of college who had no background in internet protocols, it was jumping into the deep end without knowing how to swim. But this is JPL and a flight project, there's no hand-holding or room for error. You simply do your job and don't fail. I imagine like a movie in production, things come together very fast with a lot of moving parts in the project. Because JPL is JPL, everyone knows exactly what they're doing which sets a great rhythm to follow."

"Our Interplanetary Internet mission was a success, but we had an Apollo 13 moment. Out of nowhere, our communication with the spacecraft went down. Interplanetary communications are run through a series of large antennas around the world, but time on this network is shared with dozens of other space missions. We only had a limited time to solve our problem otherwise we would fail to meet some mission objectives."

"One of my tasks had been not only to develop how we operated our mission, but to determine all the points of failure, how to determine what a failure was based on what we observed, and a plan to fix the failure. In a team of about a dozen people we had a conversation if the plan actually applied, we then went through my plan line-by-line, and then implemented the plan. We solved the problem in less than 30 minutes. Adrenaline was pumping and people were nervous – but it was almost as though there was no stress in the room. We all just knew what to do and did it. It was one of the most incredible experiences in my life."

What made you decide to leave NASA to get your Ph.D. in Astrophysics?

"It has always been my plan to get a Ph.D. To me, there's something romantic about dedicating your life to a specific theoretical problem and becoming the world expert on it. I specifically returned to physics because I missed the math and difficulty. I wanted to learn about what underlies our physical reality. This requires a lot of focus and for two years I worked for JPL while doing my Ph.D. – it was unsustainable. I needed a break to finish my Ph.D."

How did you go from Astrophysics to developing "The Love Algorithm"?

"As amazing or potentially inspiring as my work at JPL or Washington University may be, it's not going to help people live their lives. I've always wanted to find a way to apply my skills to actually help people."

"The idea started when my then girlfriend wanted to break up with me. She suggested that she wanted to do a "cost-benefit analysis." I laughed as I thought it was a silly idea. While she probably meant something different, my mind immediately went to the sort of work i had done for theoretical predictions of mission success – where you look at all the issues and come up with a statistical way of determining what the most likely outcome was. Honestly, I don't view my personal relationships that way but I told her I'd build it, if only to get my mind off of the breakup. This sort of thing is actually fun for me."

"So I started as a skeptic who accepted the theoretical challenge to determine if there was a way of quantifying the decision for whether or not two people should stay together. The more I tested it, starting with the basic way of testing algorithms and ending with strangers I met off of Craigslist, I realized there actually was something to this."

"Whether or not I would make a decision based on this algorithm, I realize there are people out there who do find comfort in having an objective analysis. I can actually help people with this, so if I'm certain in the theory why not do it?"

When designing this algorithm, what has been the most difficult hurdles? How did you resolve them?

"Oh dear, this is a technical question! I'll start by saying the most difficult parts in the algorithm were addressed before I worked on the romance algorithm. This comes out of a lot of my work and brainstorming at JPL for predictive analysis."

"The biggest hurdle is understanding "what are all the parameters that enter into my definition of a romantic decision?" As a systems engineer, you know it's not about the relationship between two people but the relationships and potential you have with everyone else. Someone who perceives more opportunities outside of a relationship will view that decision differently than if they had less opportunity. So now I need to come up with ways of addressing every possible set of life circumstances that would impact all social behavior. That's tough. From mathematics, there are some clear rules about how we interact in communities – these equations are used in epidemiology and sociology. But adapting those equations to different communities and individuals was a challenge."

"We also need a lot of information to give a good answer and no one wants to sit and answer questions for an hour at a computer. So the next major hurdle was reducing the number of questions to something people would be comfortable with. There's also the psychological aspect of asking questions that people will give honest answers to. Not that people would lie to us, but in that people are never honest with themselves or objective about how they feel and actually interact with others."

Once you created the algorithm, how difficult was it to create a user interface to work with it?

"Challenging! The answer coming out of the algorithm is only as good as the quality of data going into the algorithm. No one has ever done anything like this. There's online dating where you fill out a profile and astrology where you may give your birthday or answer a few other questions, like at a Tarot reading. We're doing something revolutionary – a scientific way of predicting the future. Designing a question system that people would not get exhausted took some effort."

"But this is where the NASA engineer part of me kicks in. One thing I learned from JPL is that no one is the smartest person in the room and everyone brings something unique to the table. Learn to listen and be constructive when you're not the best person to contribute to the solution. I'm no expert in how to design web pages but I know design theory and know how to run a project. So generally, I came up with the basic design concepts that brought in the experts to make revisions and fill in the blanks I left. Rocket science went into Nanaya in more than just the algorithm."

How confident are you in the accuracy of this technology?

"Quite confident! When I tested the algorithm on friends and strangers – I sought those who had made a past romantic decision they were happy with and I asked them to assess their past relationship without telling me their decision. I would then show them what the algorithm predicted. The algorithm was always right by the time I had gone through all the volunteers as I was learning new things about the relationship and social dynamics as I was going. For instance, for some people a relationship that starts out with a long commute time will hurt the quality of the relationship as it continues. I did not know to address this when I started but it's now included."

"Another important thing to say is the more people who try Nanaya the more accurate it will become. Nanaya is truly revolutionary as an app, it's not just a buzzword. We're the only app that does these type of numerical calculations and its wholly democratic in principle. Everyone that participates will help everyone else have more accurate results. I can't stress this enough."

"To calculate your odds of finding love, we use our database. So if you're a straight woman in California, we look at straight and straight-leaning men in California to determine those odds. If you're in entertainment, we look at straight and straight-leaning men in entertainment. The accuracy of the results are based on the number of people who have tried Nanaya. The more we can statistically represent society, the more accurate results will be."

"As more people come in, we'll be able to introduce new features like "which city should I move to?" and "should I stay with my partner?" but I won't do that until we have enough data where I can be absolutely certain of its accuracy in answering those questions."

For a person looking for love, how will this technology help them? What does it actually do?

"The future is scary to think about. People don't want to but they're always living in fear of it. I want to help people live free of this fear by giving them the knowledge to make it better. That's the bottom line."

"People want to find love but it's hard, right? We get into relationships with people that aren't a good fit for us. We feel nervous that we're getting older and still aren't in a stable relationship. We feel it's hard to make a decision because there may seem like there's too many people we are interested in and yet so few people that we actually feel that deep connection with. We all want that but it feels unobtainable. Online dating can help broaden horizons, but the problem is still there."

"Nanaya is the objective tool to quiet all those fears. We're all unique individuals with our own needs, desires, and lifestyles. Nanaya calculates your future taking all of those into account. We can tell you what your future will look like if you don't change a thing – and then what you can do to make your future brighter. That could be dating in a different crowd of people you've never thought of that share values closer to yours. We'll tell you which groups of people give you the best chance. You might not know the best way of changing your routine to feel more fulfilled romantically and socially. We'll give you advice on what steps to take in your life to feel more fulfilled. You might be considering where to move, we can tell you which places are the best fit socially and romantically. You could be worried that you'll be turning 30 and are still single, we'll tell you what your statistically optimal age to settle down is based on your values and opportunities and that the expectations you've grown up with only hurt you."

"All of this is done algorithmically, objectively. We treat everyone based on who they are and what they want and every report is unique."

So once I do the questionnaire, will it tell me what to change?

"For everyone, we give action items and advice. There'll be a text report that gives an interpretation of our results and bullet points to follow. Sometimes, we suggest that it might be worth changing some aspects of lifestyle and values to improve your odds of finding love and feeling more connected to people but sometimes that advice is to learn to accept who you are rather than change. Self-love is something that anxious people need. My goal in Nanaya isn't just about helping people find love but to feel more fulfilled in life."

"Even for people with 100% chance of finding love, if they're closed off emotionally – those odds are meaningless. For someone with a low chance of finding love, if they follow our advice they may find themselves beating the odds. One thing to keep in mind is that the numbers are only numbers. They're not reality, they're a statistical prediction. That prediction and how you answer various questions tells us what you can do to help you feel more fulfilled in the future."

Where can I go to try out the system?

"Nanaya is currently in beta testing as a free web app. That means you can access it from our web page at www.nanaya.co from a computer, tablet, or mobile. There are no profiles, the whole point of Nanaya is a personal report. People can take the whole assessment anonymously or login to save their results and change their answers to see how their future may change if they make different decisions."

"People who log in with Facebook have an opportunity to see how they socially and romantically match and compare with Facebook friends though people can choose to hide."

"We currently offer several Premium features, such as predicting the ideal age of settling down based on your values, lifestyle, and available romantic opportunities, for $4.99. People who purchase Nanaya Premium Access will have future Premium, non-subscription features for free though this offer of free lifetime Premium will disappear once we transition to the full app."