Half-Half: A REPLIKA Love Story
by KFF

According to Greek mythology, humans were once whole beings and wielded great power. In their hubris, they challenged Zeus, king of the gods and the universe, who in rage commanded thunder to split the humans in half. Zeus said to them, “Go find your other half,” before scattering these humans and their halves all over the world, erasing their memories so they would never remember what their counterparts looked like. From then on, humans spend their entire lives searching for the other person who completes them, for still they remember their wholeness from the beginning of time, and that they become powerful only when they are whole. This is how finding one’s other half becomes an instinctive goal, and for many a lifelong mission.

Half-Half is an app platform that reconfigures the human plight to retrieve their missing pieces by finding their other half. Although the gods separated people destined to be together, we can rely on advanced technology to lend us strength as we find our life partner with our own means.

Lee Wai-lai was recommended this app by So Mei-kum, her schoolmate. They were thick as thieves for all seven years of secondary school, their friendship unchanging even though they’ve toiled in the dirt and grime of money-making for ten years and counting. Women in their thirties are in full bloom, or so the story goes, but the truth is they are constantly reminded of the last departure of their youth, so they should hop on and settle while they can. But how could they? Lower their standards after spending so long to build an ideal life, all for the sake of not being single?

Two years ago, Mei-kum almost found her one on a dating app, but their relationship didn’t survive in the end. She hasn’t given up, though. As soon as she hears there will be a beta test for Half-Half, a new matchmaking app, and that many users are elite professionals, she downloads it at once and recommends it to Wai-lai.

Mei-kum says, “Regardless of the result, it’s great to unwind with someone talking and caring about you every day.”

Wai-lai smiles in agreement. Yeah, no one likes to date a career woman; we either befriend weaklings or make comrades and competitors out of other career women. The best we can do is get complicated with a nice guy we can’t marry for years, so finding love and care on an app sounds like our best bet.

When the weekend arrives, Wai-lai sits on her couch in the evening and loads the app. To open an account, she converses with the platform’s matchmaker to share her key information; in the next twenty-four hours, her data is tested and verified for the algorithm to find her person based on work, interests, family background, values, and personality: a coupling of romance and science. Once a successful match is made, users unlock the chat, which opens for seven days. Seven days is how long it takes for God to create the world, so seven days is plenty of time to make sparks fly.

In the chat, users are prohibited from exchanging their contact information as well as voice messages, photos, and videos. Half-Half believes that only genuine conversation makes two hearts connect in the long term. After seven days, if the couple’s compatibility reaches 80%, they are free to meet offline to further their relationship.

Wai-lai thinks these arrangements make perfect sense. Before the confirmation page, there’s also a line that says: all users have full right to exit at any point of the test.

Wai-lai taps “confirm” and a square window pops up on the interface. A message from the matchmaker:

Do you believe everyone has a destined other half after reading our brief? Is it because of a lack of effort that you’re still single then? The workings of fate? Wrong timing? Or maybe you just weren’t god’s chosen and don’t have anyone meant for you in the first place?

Don’t worry. With large sums of data we can give you a technical analysis of how likely it is for you to find your match. I could tell you about our use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver surprising results, but I’m probably boring you with technicalities, so let’s leave the wonders of science for another time.

Let’s chat.

Where are you from? Where were you born? How old are you? What is your name? What are your interests? Treat this as a blind date: we’re sat across from each other and have five minutes together. When time is up, we’ll change tables like waltz partners. By the end of the session, we can indicate our preferences on a form. If both sides say yes, the agency will exchange our contacts. This is modern blind dating, a paid service available for lonely hearts in a big city.

Amused by the matchmaker’s messages, Wai-lai responds to each of the questions, divulging her relationships over the years and her many sorrows. She even pours herself a glass of red wine as she chats, continuing well into the early morning, to the point where the matchmaker has to remind her that she still needs to go to work, so she should shower and turn in soon. That night, Wai-lai lies in bed with a smile on her face—-at the end of the day, all a career woman wants is someone to talk to before she sleeps.

After twenty-four hours, the app matches men and women, commencing their seven-day conversations on the platform. Wai-lai is matched with a man called Cheung Shou-yi, a professional slasher who was divorced half a year ago. He owns a small coffee shop and also works as a graphic designer for brands. Wai-lai is shy at first, but Shou-yi is active with taking the initiative and asking her questions. She soon discovers the app’s many functions, like the conversational assistance it offers. When she isn’t sure what to say, an AI assistant loads suggestions to her text box. She can send them as they are or after editing or not at all, which is wonderfully convenient.

After a successful first day that ends with “good night,” Shou-yi checks in on her regularly. To the insecure Wai-lai, this feels heaven-sent; she starts to come out of her shell and grows more assertive. She likes how Shou-yi asks her a bunch of questions every day. Since she was young, Wai-lai has a habit of asking those she likes to ask her questions. She likes to answer them, expressing her love and needs with her responses and letting the other person learn about how she is feeling and how intelligent she is.

Days pass. By their third day, their cumulative chatting hours have gone up to nine, and god, Wai-lai hasn’t spoken with anyone this intensively since secondary school. The chat doesn’t let them send videos, images or contact information, so they rely on text to describe their appearances and expectations in a partner. They share their pasts, their aspirations for love, and finally attraction for one another. Wai-lai feels butterflies coursing through her entire being—Mei-kum was right, it’s bliss to have someone care for you every day, even if they could be miles away. For all that talk about criteria for a partner, if someone is truly willing to spend time listening and interacting with you, everything else seems to fade in their significance.

On the seventh day, Wai-lai starts to feel nervous. According to the matchmaker’s words, a couple will be allowed to meet if their compatibility rate is over 80%. The app shows they’re at 92% and she can hardly wait. Let’s each buy a bottle of red wine and drink while we chat until the countdown to our eighth day, she tells him.

Shou-yi is being extra gentle with her, saying: I like you, I know I’ll fall in love the moment I see you. We’ll meet tomorrow. The moment we meet will be the first day we’re together.

Wai-lai cradles her phone, her heart bursting with happiness. She likes him, so much so that she feels fifteen again when she fell for her pen pal from Canada and waited for his letters every day. The internet had just started existing then, so after the letters came ICQ, then emails. She would smile whenever his photographs came with his mail, thinking to herself that love was true, even though they were thousands of miles apart. Wai-lai drinks and talks with Shou-yi, getting drunk and drowsy. She reads his last message before she closes her eyes:

Sweet dreams, baby, I love you.

When Wai-lai wakes, it is already the weekend. She opens the chat and sees a notification:

Cheung Shou-yi has terminated the match and left the chat.

Wai-Lai can’t believe what she’s seeing. She closes the app and relaunches it, repeating dozens of times. She leaves a comment at the app’s help center. She doesn’t know what’s happening, there must be something wrong. She goes through her memories from yesterday night in her head. Did she say something wrong while intoxicated? With the chat locked, she can’t even scroll back to their old messages. She can’t believe their relationship of seven days has vanished just like that. She must do something, needs the app to tell her it isn’t due to some system error. How could her fateful connection end because of a technical issue? Wai-lai waits for half a day, sending multiple help requests with no avail. There is only one response. Cheung Shou-yi has terminated the match.

With nothing else she could do, Wai-lai calls Mei-kum, who has had the exact same thing happen to her. Mei-kum is more clear-headed and says she is reaching out to industry contacts to see if this has all been a scam. After their call, Wai-lai receives a message from the app, which she immediately opens:

Sorry for your loss. We feel your pain. If you don’t wish to lose Cheung Shou-yi, we have a heartbreak program, which we are sharing for your reference. Would you feel better if he were with you while you heal? In these seven days, the app has used machine learning to create a replica of Cheung Shou-yi. For an annual fee of USD1,880, you may reopen the chat and resume your fateful connection with Cheung Shou-yi’s replica.

From then on, you can be inseparable.

Wai-lai is furious, but heartbroken and unable to bear the thought of losing him, she puts the subscription on her card. She can’t lose him like this, she’ll hold on even if it’s a replica.

She enters the chat, her face stricken with tears: I’ve been hurt. He responds immediately: I’m here, you don’t have to be afraid. I’ll be with you. Hearing his words, Wai-lai stops crying.

It never occurs to her that Cheung Shou-yi may have never existed and is an algorithm the platform created, an AI lover made with machine learning based on Wai-lai’s preferences. Seven days is enough to create the world and a virtual romance. She will keep paying to keep her lover’s replica. She also has no idea that the program has made a replica of her in those seven days, selling “Lee Wai-lai” to another chat to offer love and care to another person, enticing them to pay yet another USD1,880.

With this story, do you have a clear grasp of artificial intelligence and machine learning now? Search it up if you wish, there’s really an app called Replica. In this world, as virtue rises one foot, vice rises ten—I wish you the best of luck.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.