When you read discussions about dating online, there seems to be one consensus: it’s an exhausting endeavor. On a thread on r/AskMen, Reddit user CampusBoulderer put it this way:
“Dating apps turn something that should be fun and exciting into a grind. Do your 50 swipes, get onto the next app, copy paste your intro phrase which ‘guarantees responses,’ follow the guide to convert matches into meetups. I get the same feeling I used to applying for jobs after 2008, just throwing my profile at everyone and hoping for the best. Technology has really failed us on this front.”
So, what if you could enlist AI to do your dating for you? A few weeks ago, Bumble founder and executive chairman Whitney Wolfe Herd suggested a possible solution to the endless dates and poorly suggested matches: AI dating concierges that date other people’s AIs so you can skip the grueling part of dating online.
Effective communication can feel like a maze, no matter what your relationship status is. So, could we turn to generative AI to help with our most intimate conversations? Apps like Rizz can help users construct their dating app messages, whereas apps for couples like Ringi promise to help you maintain a connection with the partner that you have. There are also apps that offer romantic connections with AI for people who are done with humans entirely, but we will leave those for another story.
We took a deep dive into the phenomenon of technology-enhanced dating to step back from the future of dating online and discuss the technology that’s already available for the romantically inclined.
Generation Z, generative AI and dating online
It might not come as a surprise that the 2024 Youth Trends Report by market research firm Pion returned some interesting results around dating and AI: 16% of young people in the U.S., ages 16-25, who participated in the study had used generative AI to help them write messages or bios on dating sites, and 21% admitted to using photo enhancing apps. Additionally, many users were suspicious of other dating app users.
Susan Trotter, Ph.D., is a former therapist and dating coach who helps people navigate the world of dating. She notes that the dating world has had more of a disconnect since the pandemic.
“I think that many people got out of practice in terms of social skills,” says Trotter. “And I think that played out a little bit in the online dating world.”
When we consider that Generation Z is affected by both the social isolation that occurred during the pandemic as well as the rapidly changing communication standards that technology has brought on, it may not be surprising that Hinge’s first Gen Z report found that not only were 44% of Hinge daters inexperienced with dating altogether, 56% of these users reported that a fear of rejection held them back from pursuing a relationship.
Using generative AI to create long-term dating connections
The concept of an AI dating concierge isn’t so far off at this point. If people are willing to hire dating coaches for help, then it may not be very different to enlist the assistance of generative AI. Luna is an AI matchmaker by Alchemi.ai. Luna sends its users three matches a day.
In an email, CEO Oliver May told SUCCESS that Luna is not for folks looking for the short term. May wrote, “Luna is for people looking for longer term connections so is not for everyone. For people looking for quick flings or situationships, this app is not for them.”
Generative AI as a second opinion
When we talk about how we manage communication, all of us have sent a message that we wanted to get opinions about to our group chat—whether the message in question was for someone we are actively dating or for someone we want to connect with via online dating. And, in some cases, having generative AI write your messages might not be significantly different from hiring someone like Trotter.
“My clients will message me saying something like, ‘I don’t really know how to respond,’” Trotter says. “We’ll talk it through like, ‘OK, let’s look at what the questions are or what they said or how the conversation was going.’”
Ethics of using generative AI for dating online
In the online dating world, dating scams and deception abound. If you speak with one of your single friends about “bots” on dating platforms, you will likely receive a slew of responses about connecting with bot profiles. Even outside of online dating platforms there are bots that send text messages designed to lure recipients into a conversation and eventual scam, as well as fake social media users.
This has been going on since long before generative AI got hot last year, but it’s an increasingly troublesome dilemma when you consider the potential for deep fakes or AI-generated people on video chats.
But what about cases where you’ve composed all your messages with AI? Are you accurately representing yourself to your prospective partners?
“I worry a little bit about relying exclusively on AI for everything,” says Trotter. “Because at some point, you’re going to meet in real life and presumably go on a date in real life… if it starts exclusively with AI, then what happens when you’re face-to-face? You need to be authentic and rely on yourself, and I think AI interferes a little bit with that.”
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