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So, I have a bit of an obsession with dating apps. To clarify, I am not really on any of them, but I love to see other people use them.
Whether it’s a Barstool post on “Tinder Tuesday,” or seeing my friends’ terrible matches, dating app culture is one of my guilty pleasures.
Through my osmosis learning about dating apps, I have come to the same understanding about them that many others have: they suck.
From endless scrolling to fake profiles, dating apps lead to frustration, with 46% of people polled by the Pew Research Center indicating that they had a somewhat or very negative experience with online dating.
For some, AI chatbots have the potential to enhance the dating app experience.
As someone skeptical of AI technologies and dating apps, integrating AI into these platforms immediately intrigued me.
Personal Accounts From Users
As fun as it would be to play an anthropological dating columnist a la Carrie Bradshaw, I am extremely hesitant to have a fake version of me prowling around online.
Luckily enough, other people have taken the time to write about their experiences.
One such person touches on my concerns about having an AI clone talking to other, real, people.
Eli Tan, a technology reporter at the New York Times, wrote about his experience on a variety of AI dating apps.
Based on his experience, Tan explains that AI dating apps work, for the most part, in a twofold manner. The user creates an AI clone to act as their double. This AI version of the user will go on dates with other AI profiles until a potential match is made. Then, the actual person associated with the profile can take over.
On the other hand, the AI profile can go out and have conversations with real users. The overall goal of the AI element seems to be cutting out the awkward small talk that someone has to go through when they first connect with someone online.
During Tan’s experiences, his AI double on Ice, one AI clone provider, apparently had a very awkward conversation with a woman about snacks.
Another writer at Elle, Rebecca Mitchell, documented her experience using Amata, an AI that can help profile building and matchmaking.
Her takeaways were that while Amata can help, to a certain degree, with profile building and slowing down the otherwise fast-paced online dating scene, it is still a dating app at the end of the day.
“Amata is still an app. It suffers the same pitfalls beleaguering every other dating app: it relies on metrics, and reduces dating to this limited capability,” Mitchell wrote.
AI in Dating Apps Are an Ineffective Solution
Instead of improving the online dating experience, AI in dating apps does not actually solve any problem in this sphere of the internet.
Dating with AI in the mix can lead to the same awkward experiences that normal dating brings with the downsides that come with commoditized dating.
Even as someone skeptical of AI, I do not think AI or the overwhelming push to include it in everything is to blame for a bad online dating experience. Instead, the overall modern dating experience needs to be examined.
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