True Love By Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov not only easily captures his insight of possible future problems, but is also noteworthy because of his ability to make the reader think about the meaning of true love itself.

True Love is written in the future about a scientist named Milton Davidson that is either socially awkward or otherwise non-functional, Davidson is the best in his field of computer scientist. Milton Davidson is incapable of finding the right woman for himself, so he decides to use his experimental computer named Joe to track down the his ideal woman. Milton attacks his task by going through an intellectual model of what would make the ideal woman.

Milton starts off by removing matches based off of IQ and height, which brings him to the too large of a pool, so he brings pictures of models for Joe to analyze in attempts to reduce its size. The first attempt to find true love by Davidson is based completely off of physical attributes, with a small bit on overall knowledge. However, just the fact that Milton has searched for these woman is not enough, he must must now teach Joe how to do illegal activities so he can meet the woman. These actions are the precursors to Milton’s ultimate fate as he begins to make Joe think just like him. The story continues to require Joe to think more and more like Milton, of course this is all so Joe will be able to find the perfect match for Milton.

Milton believes he has finally found what he has been looking for but then Joe sends his maker to prison for another illegal action ten years earlier so he can be with the perfect match. Joe says that their personalities will resonate together so what do looks matter, this is what Asimov was referring to as True Love. However, the implication that people are much like a computer is also in the story and as technology evolves they can become more and more like us. This story was fun to read and also makes one think about the future as well as the true meaning of love, I highly recommend it.