matching
Original: matching on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (light-haired, presenting): Thanks to computer science, we no longer need dating. We can produce perfect marriages with simple algorithms.
Man (with flame-like hair): Ooh!
Panel 2:
Caption: And so...
Panel 3:
Woman: There are many women you'd be happier with, but they're already with people whom they prefer to you. Thus, you will be paired with your 439th favorite choice. We have a stable equilibrium.
Man: Hooray!
Votey:
Text (hand-lettered): Isn't love magical?
(Below the text, a woman's face stares blankly with wide, hollow eyes and a flat, uneasy expression.)
Woman (light-haired, presenting): Thanks to computer science, we no longer need dating. We can produce perfect marriages with simple algorithms.
Man (with flame-like hair): Ooh!
Panel 2:
Caption: And so...
Panel 3:
Woman: There are many women you'd be happier with, but they're already with people whom they prefer to you. Thus, you will be paired with your 439th favorite choice. We have a stable equilibrium.
Man: Hooray!
Votey:
Text (hand-lettered): Isn't love magical?
(Below the text, a woman's face stares blankly with wide, hollow eyes and a flat, uneasy expression.)
Alt text
A three-panel comic. In the first panel, a light-haired woman cheerfully presents an idea to a man with flame-like hair, saying that thanks to computer science we no longer need dating and can produce perfect marriages with simple algorithms; the man responds 'Ooh!' A caption reads 'And so...' In the final panel the woman explains that there are many women he'd be happier with, but they're already with people they prefer, so he will be paired with his 439th favorite choice because 'We have a stable equilibrium' (a reference to the stable-matching algorithm); the man cheers 'Hooray!' The joke: an algorithm guarantees a stable match, not a happy one. Votey: hand-lettered text reads 'Isn't love magical?' above a woman's face with wide, hollow, blank eyes and an unsettled, hollow expression, undercutting the romance.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.