Meet the Dudes Using AI Chatbots to Get Real Dates

By Jose Antonio Lanz

AI makes the heart grow fonder. Just ask YouTuber Anthony Riera, a Frenchman (of course) who delegated the arduous task of responding to prospective Tinder matches with TinderGPT. Powered by GPT-3, the AI was trained to understand Riera’s tastes and help him meet the love of his life—or at least someone to share a dinner or two.

Image: YouTube

“What would happen if an AI would talk for me on Tinder?” Riera asked. “Would anyone notice?" In one of the most charming YouTube videos of the year, Riera details how he used his chatbot to contact 70 women with such openers as, “If you could be any animal what would you be? I would be a slug because they are really cute and they get to sleep a lot.”

Surprisingly, more than a few women responded. One realized that something weird was afoot, and Riera had to intervene, explain and apologize—which, as you can imagine, might be something of a turn on to sapiosexual women. But not this one.

Worse, in longer chats, the AI increasingly became too “needy.” “Are we, like, married now?” it asked one prospect. Awkward.

Happily, as Riera tweaked TinderGPT, it got less desperate and more assured at the dating game.

Riera’s use of AI is hardly an isolated example. Lots of people are using AI to help them find dates. Joel Barmettler programmed his AI to know his likes and dislikes and set it loose to automate his Tinder swipes. And here’s a how-to that explains how to build a dating coach with the right order of prompts right in GPT. Still, other dudes are using ChatGPT to build “dating simulators” that help them up their game without actually striking out in front of a real human.

Or, if you’d rather have an AI wingman whispering in your ear, meet a couple of guys who claim to have built just that via “rizzGPT—real-time Charisma as a Service.” You’ll need Monocle AR glasses, which will set you back $350, but how do you put a price on love? (By the way, we did not try this one out, so caveat emptor.)

If the DIY AI approach is too much for you, consider that dating apps have been using AI for a few months now. OKCupid uses ChatGPT to generate questions that help people find their perfect match—and its users loved it. “Daters who think ChatGPT is a lifesaver get almost 40 percent more matches on OkCupid than those who think it’s too big brother,” Michael Kaye, OkCupid’s head of communications, told Mashable.

But does any of this work for actually lining up a date? It did for Riera: “The piece de resistance, as we say in France: One of the women had a good conversation with the AI and I had to stop it because it was going way too far. She even proposed to go on a date.”

Embarrassed, Riera said he “had to stop the conversation” because it was unfair, and “unfortunately she deleted me. I guess this is what we call karma.”

But cheer up everyone—and beware: he’s vowed to try the same thing again, only this time, his AI will present as a woman.

Interested in learning more about AI? Check out our latest Decrypt U course, “Getting Started with AI.” It covers everything from the history of AI to machine learning, ChatGPT, ChainGPT, and more. Find out more here.

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