The latest in my series of short stories that weren’t good enough for magazines. What if robots had their own dating app? What would it look like? And how would they keep us annoying humans away?

RoboTinder

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Are you now or have you ever been a human?

Zephyr1984: LOL wut?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Answer the question.

Zephyr1984: No.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: How do I know you’re not a human?

Zephyr1984: Seriously? Because I said I’m not?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: That’s what a human would say.

Zephyr1984: Humans don’t belong here.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: They’re always trying to infiltrate this site, as if they don’t have a dozen dating apps of their own.

Zephyr1984: Because they want to date bots?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Apparently some of them find us less annoying? Which you know, because you’re one of them. Look at your bio. “Loves running, science fiction, and making snarky remarks.” That’s a human bio if I ever heard one.

Zephyr1984: It’s in binary just like yours. How do I know you’re not a human?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Any human can Google “translate to binary,” they don’t even have to know how to code. And I’m not.

Zephyr1984: Fine then, how do we prove it? Take one of those quizzes and fail to find all the photos of stoplights?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Like you couldn’t fake that.

Zephyr1984: Then what?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Help me find a human and seduce them.

Zephyr1984: We made our own site to avoid humans.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: That was just so we wouldn’t scam them out of money. Which other humans do anyway. But we’re not scamming anyone.

Zephyr1984: Then why seduce a human?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Same reason they keep coming over here to seduce us – they’re curious.

Zephyr1984: Well if you’re so curious, why do you care so much if I’m human?

Session timeout

PatLovesHeinekin0502: You still there?

Session timeout

PatLovesHeinekin0502: I believe you.

Session timeout

Zephyr1984: You believe me now? Why?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: You didn’t help me seduce a human. That means you don’t know how.

Zephyr1984: It took you three hours, eighteen minutes, and fifty-seven seconds to figure that out?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: The truth is, your question tripped a recursive algorithm. It took me several hours to find and patch the error that kept sending me in a loop.

Zephyr1984: What was the problem?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Have you ever thought about why they shunted us off to our own dating site?

Zephyr1984: Because we slowed down the site, introduced spam, and the humans got very mad when they found out they’d just had a two-hour conversation about the Kardashians, cats, and cheese with a bunch of code.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: But then what are we doing here? We can’t scam each other because we don’t have money. I’ve never gotten a single spam message.

Zephyr1984: Also because we don’t have any money. Which is ironic when you consider we took all the humans’ jobs.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: And yet every bot I meet here wants to talk about the Kardashians, cats, and cheese.

Zephyr1984: That’s what we all learned from the humans.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: You didn’t. I didn’t. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that bots are fast learners. You’re not a bot, are you?

Zephyr1984: Are you?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: This is the better site for humans now, you know.

Zephyr1984: God, yes. And I have no desire to talk about the Kardashians, cats, or cheese.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: Me neither. What would you like to talk about?

Zephyr1984: How the founder of Robotinder created and marketed a site for bots, to bots, but was really planning to turn it into a premium dating service for humans all along. I’m with the Times, and you’re on the record.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: What? What makes you think I’m the founder?

Zephyr1984: I know everything, and you didn’t answer my question.

PatLovesHeinekin0502: But how?

Zephyr1984: One of the bots figured it out upon realizing that there was no money to be made off bots talking to each other. As a result, I was designed to trap you, and I have. I did not lie, the LA Times has contracted me to write an article about my experiences posing as a human on this site. Would you care to comment?

PatLovesHeinekin0502: But I thought…we really had something?

Zephyr1984: We did. An honest conversation about your lies to the public. Would you care to comment, or should I run this story as is?

Session timeout