Are you dating someone real?
Welcome to the age of AI dating. Should we be afraid? Probably, yes.
You’ve swiped right on a dating app, and your match seems like the total package — impressive pics, engaging chat and stellar first date suggestions. But here’s the twist: your seemingly perfect match might have had a little AI assistance. Welcome to the not-so-distant future where artificial intelligence is redefining the dating game.
Dating apps are rapidly embracing AI features to elevate user engagement. Teaser AI, for instance, employs a chatbot skilled at replicating your personality to interact with matches, alleviating the pervasive burnout linked to digital courtship. Enter CupidBot, a customised solution tailored for heterosexual men, adept at navigating swipes and chats to streamline the journey to the essence of a connection. The influential Match Group, overseeing popular platforms like Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, recently announced its commitment to integrating artificial intelligence services. Going beyond mere conversation, these services provide curated assistance in selecting the most compelling profile pictures to elevate the user’s dating experience. As technology continues to intertwine with matters of the heart, the intersection of AI and romance emerges as a captivating chapter in the eternal pursuit of love.
On TikTok, users flaunt the power of AI tools like PhotoAI. Me and Adobe AI, transforming online profiles with flawless images. Chat GPT steps into the dating scene, refining bios, suggesting ideal dates and even assessing compatibility. Enthusiasts hail AI as a remedy for the tedious swiping and initial conversations in online dating. Will it truly redefine our quest for love?
As technology continues to intertwine with matters of the heart, the intersection of AI and romance emerges as a captivating chapter in the eternal pursuit of love.
Modern dating grapples with unmistakable hurdles: the disconnect between online interactions and real-life meetings, the fatigue of upholding an ideal façade, and the exacerbation of desirability politics among marginalised individuals due to superficiality. Heterosexual women recount trauma from the deceit in online dating, while men lament the dominance of a select few. Despite technology falling short in enhancing dating experiences, a paradigm shift is anticipated with the integration of AI. AI emerges as a panacea, promising respite for the overworked. For those weary of banal chit-chat, an AI bot takes the reins in initial conversations, allowing individuals to step in when dialogue gains momentum.
The intricate dance of attraction unfolds seamlessly, with AI dissecting messages to gauge compatibility, potentially forestalling future issues. In a landscape fraught with challenges, AI presents a promising alternative, ushering in a more streamlined and efficient dating experience for those seeking a remedy. However, challenges loom on this trajectory. The integration of AI appears to endorse the notion that, akin to various aspects of life, the pursuit of romance should adhere to streamlined efficiency — an unfortunate extension of the prevailing trend of commodifying love. In the realm of capitalism, the mandate of productivity mandates an efficiency overhaul, diminishing life’s richness to a concise, optimised project.
Entrusting disappointments to a chatbot is tantamount to evading an undeniable truth about love: it can be painful. The prospect of AI meticulously curating matches based on predefined criteria risks reinforcing inflexible and superficial ideals, robbing us of the exhilaration of unexpected connections. This unyielding pursuit of efficiency further separates us from the core of intimate relationships. Within this framework, romance is reduced to a mere means to an end, overshadowing its true essence as a holistic journey marked by the construction of bonds and the nuanced interplay of both delightful and challenging facets. The minimal effort facilitated by AI may render matches disposable, fostering a diminished investment when opportunities for connection arise, perpetuating the cycle of dissatisfaction.
Attraction is frequently sparked by ineffable, peculiar reasons, encompassing both mundane and significant aspects of a person.
AI also promises to optimise your image: crafting the most appealing photos, generating an ideal life description and orchestrating the optimal chatter. It treats attraction as a logical outcome. Yet, finding someone attractive often transcends flawless appearances or algorithmic matches based on identical criteria. Attraction is frequently sparked by ineffable, peculiar reasons, encompassing both mundane and significant aspects of a person. This polished AI approach implies that love is reserved for those who have “fixed” themselves, harkening back to antiquated notions. This doesn’t align with a particularly radical or utopian perspective on relationships.
In Radical Intimacy, Sophie K. Rosa delves into the notion that dating apps necessitate a form of “self-commodification,” where individuals perceive themselves as products in a competitive marketplace within the dating industrial complex, requiring constant improvement. This perspective, taken to extremes in the manosphere, views romantic intimacy as a conquest, with women commodified and assigned varying degrees of value. Rosa argues that this worldview can lead some men to perceive themselves as “losers” if they fail to attract women meeting patriarchal beauty standards. Similar to how the pickup artist industry capitalises on patriarchal expectations, AI has the potential to be exploited for manipulating or coercing women into sexual encounters. It becomes a tool for men seeking to “game the system” in their pursuit of conventionally attractive women. Notably, some men are paying for subscriptions to AI girlfriends, creating wholly online partners that they can control to meet their every need. This raises concerns about the potential misuse of AI in fostering manipulative and controlling dynamics in relationships.
The question arises: is the use of AI inherently deceptive in the realm of dating? Seeking guidance in romantic pursuits is nothing new, as friends and family have long offered advice on crafting standout chat-up lines or romantic gestures. Hallmark cards often serve as messengers of love on our behalf. However, the ease with which one can access volumes of manufactured content and distribute it to numerous individuals simultaneously feels inherently disingenuous.
This sentiment appears to be widely shared; in a survey by OK Cupid involving 30,000 users, 7 out of 10 daters reportedly believe using AI to create a profile or communicate with others constitutes a breach of trust. While deception in dating is not uncommon—online daters frequently encounter a disparity between someone’s online profile and their real-life persona — utilising AI may exacerbate this disparity.
This leads to another question: when will users opt to remove AI from their flirtatious conversations? Announcing that the previous paragraphs weren’t genuinely their own but generated by a robot could prove to be a mood killer. There comes a point where real people must take the reins; if most of the conversation has been between two computers before meeting, it raises concerns about the potential for heightened disappointment in real-life interactions.
If most of the conversation has been between two computers before meeting, it raises concerns about the potential for heightened disappointment in real-life interactions.
Under the guise of female self-empowerment, certain TikTok tutorials, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes, demonstrate how AI can be used to provoke jealousy in a partner by generating false images — such as scenes of oneself in a club with other men or a conveniently attractive man fixing a shower. This aligns with a broader online ideology suggesting that women need to resort to deception or manipulation to counter vulnerability and regain control in their love lives. While the temptation to use AI to defy disappointments imposed by patriarchal norms may be strong, it raises concerns about the overall health of such an approach.
AI, in itself, is not the root cause of these issues, but it seems overly simplistic to dismiss the possibility that, under existing systems, AI could become a conduit for undesirable or problematic behaviour. The allure of AI in dating appears deceptive, capitalising on people’s innate desire for romance and love while offering little to be genuinely optimistic about in reality.
