From next fiscal year, the government will help fund the use of artificial intelligence in matchmaking services, as part of measures to improve the country's declining birthrate.
The government initiative is aimed at increasing the number of marriages by using sophisticated AI systems to select potential marriage partners who are a good match.
According to the Cabinet Office, about 25 prefectures currently offer matchmaking services for men and women living in the prefecture and wish to get married. The most common matching style is to introduce a user to someone who meets their marriage conditions, like age, and annual income.
By contrast, the AI systems can apparently select and suggest to each user people who may become fond of them based on their answers to questionnaires, such as their hobbies and values. Furthermore, a user's search inclination in the system will also be taken into consideration, even if they do not meet the conditions submitted by the user.
More than 10 prefectures, including Saitama and Ehime prefectures, have introduced AI systems. In Saitama Prefecture, which spent about 15 million yen in fiscal 2018 to build an AI system, 38 couples using the service tied the knot in fiscal 2019 -- and 21 were first suggested by the AI system.
The central government will subsidize two-thirds of the necessary cost to local governments introducing or already operating an AI system for matchmaking. The Cabinet Office has appropriated 2 billion yen for that purpose in the budgetary request for next fiscal year. The government is considering designating AI matchmaking as a project eligible for a subsidy that would be given to local governments working on declining birthrate issues.
There are similar services using AI systems in the private sector as well, but they sometimes charge hundreds of thousands of yen. On the other hand, the cost for many of the matchmaking services offered by local governments is much lower at 10,000 yen to 20,000 yen.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the number of marriages, which was about 800,000 in 2000, decreased to about 600,000 in 2019, continuing a downward trend. In the outline of measures for improving society with a declining birthrate, which the government adopted at a Cabinet meeting in May, growing tendencies to remain unmarried or marrying later in life were cited as major reasons for the country's declining birthrate.
Hence, the government is hurriedly taking measures for increasing the number of marriages through such means as doubling the subsidies for projects that support the lives of newly weds.
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