I mean, if we are really so bad at making our own decisions, why make them at all?  Aside from choosing mates at random or having another person or algorithm, removed from the actual participants’ reasoning processes but laden with their own, choose mates for us, we still choose. This just allows us more chances to find what we’re actually looking for. It’s up to us to cultivate wisdom about what we should look for. 

Exposure to other ideas and personalities is important, but I don’t think the most important place for that is in one’s mate. In a monogamous and K-selecting context like humans who marry and raise children, sexual selection isn’t solely about maximizing differences, but does involve some degree of similarity so there is long-term stability.  

I was picky about a few criteria I’d decided were actually important to me after decades of consideration when it came to finding a husband, but anyone who knows us could tell you we are very different people except for that handful of points. At other times in my life, I might have decided something less important to relationship compatibility was a dealbreaker and made a less wise decision. 

My biggest gripe with existing dating site algos is they seemed to place the same amount of emphasis on “lightweight” similarities (like taste in movies) as they did on things that mattered much more (like matters of ethics). I think there’s definitely room for improvement there that’s achievable on the programming side.