Get AI Help with Your Text Relationships with Mei Man of Many

Because relationships can be hard, and because it is woefully easy to misinterpret a text message, there's a new messaging service that features artificial intelligence to help you get it right. Mei is a mobile messaging startup that uses learning algorithms to help you understand the subtext of conversations. Studies have shown that about 44 per cent of the time, most text recipients fail to tell the difference between sarcasm and seriousness. Es Lee, a Harvard graduate with a degree in computer science, came up with the service. "One of the difficulties of maintaining relationships through text is that it's possible to come across as crass or rude--even when that was never your intention," says Lee. "Emotion is lost in text messages. Mei uses natural language processing along with learning algorithms to pick up on the nuances that you might miss. It can determine gender and age just from the types of emoji that a person uses. Reviewing the messages between two individuals, Mei can figure out the relationship between the two and how strong it is. To do so, it calculates a "compatibility percentage" that is based on openness, emotional control, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. "When you're a 25-year-old woman texting a 40-year-0ld man," explains Lee, "you might think that from the one-word messages he's sending, he's not into you.