The Future of Dating Revealed!

"It doesn’t get much more dystopian than relying on AI to solve your dating life," nypost.com asserts. Really? More dystopian than Trenton, New Jersey? Come to think of it, relying on current non-AI dating apps is pretty damn dystopian.

Dating apps are creating millions of lonely, swipe-starved men and women, even as the apps provide a small percentage of comely F boys endless Dionysian delights. Leaving a trail of jealous men and bitter beauties in their

promiscuous wake.

So what does the AI-enhanced dating app future look like? At the moment, no one knows. Rest assured Big Dating is on the case.

For good reason. Degrading, demeaning, disillusioning and depressing users is bad for business. Match Group shares are tanking like an M1 Abrams, and there’s a huge bacon-saving customer base watching from the sidelines. Sensibly enough.

AI Dating FTW?

“You could in the near future be talking to our AI dating concierge and you could share your insecurities,” the former Bumble CEO [and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd] said at the Bloomberg Technology Summit. “And it could help you train yourself into a better way of thinking about yourself.”

I reckon Ms. Herd (above) is saying that dating app users are losers who don't know how to present themselves as anything but. In her imagining, an AI dating app combines therapy with marketing.

Lipstick on a pig or the best thing to happen to dating apps since high-speed Internet?

IRL Issues

Even if AI-enhanced dating apps hook-up the previously unhookable, here be dragons.

"What happens when you get to the actual date and there’s no AI Cyrano de Bergerac to whisper witty responses in your ear?" The Post asks.

The obvious answer: a hidden earpiece with AI Cyrano prompting paying customers with bon mots and STFU's. In real time, of course.

Ah, but what happens if both daters are wearing dating app AI earbuds? Love American style! Gangnam style? Something. Better than nothing, right?

If you think about it, why stop the prompts, ever? Relationships are a tricky business. “Quick! Ask her how she really feels about clothes on the floor!” Then say “Is tidiness important to you?"

Full Service AI Dating

Backing-up a bit, Big Dating envisions their AI concierge doing all the heavy lifting for the lovelorn.

It would learn about you and your preferences, assemble your LBL profile, scan for suitable partners, chat with them and arrange dates (coordinating schedules, choosing venues, making reservations where applicable).

Sure, it gets a bit complicated – what with your potential date's AI dating app vetting your AI-massaged profile and AI-generated texts. But love is a many splendored thing. Or so we’re led to believe.

AI Dating – In Theory and Practice

Apparently, there’s a market for this kind of service.

According to a 2024 Norton poll, 64% [of those surveyed] would use AI for a conversation starter on apps, 61% to develop their profile, 59% for dating coaching, 52% to write breakup texts, and 51% to go on virtual dates for them.

Virtual dates! Wait. What?

Are we talking about AI avatars dating potential mates? Doesn't that portend AI avatars dating other AI avatars? A META meeting of the minds?

Screw it. Literally. Why not just buy an AI sex robot, program it to your specifications (including sandwich preferences) and forget the whole dating thing?

As for AI dating apps writing break-up texts, isn't that why Open AI built Chat GPT? AI robots have an off switch. Just sayin'.

Anyway, the Post missed Norton's warning against AI-enhanced dating apps.

AI technology can also make online dating riskier and more complicated when it's utilized in more nefarious ways," said Leyla Bilge, Director of Scam Research Labs for Norton. "AI is making these types of scams more common and much harder to spot.

The Struggle is Real!

Norton Security has a vested interested in playing-up dating app dangers. (I'm surprised they haven't released a dating scam detector program. Yet.)

That doesn't change the fact that Big Dating's current verification process – via phone, email, social media and/or photo upload – is failing to protect their paying customers.

Norton's data shows that nearly a third of Americans (27%) who have used a dating app say they have been targeted by a dating scam, with almost half (42%) of this 27% falling victim.

Additionally, nearly a third (30%) of Americans who have used a dating app said they had been catfished by someone.  

Adding AI to that process might help. But then we're looking at AI vs. AI. Savvy scammers have more than enough financial incentive – and far less bureaucratic bloat – to win that battle.

Meanwhile, LoveGenius, YourMove.ai, DatingGPT and Cupidbot.ai are up and running, choosing photos, writing bios and composing messages for online daters.

Back to the Future?

"A generation of young men are growing up with AI and failing to develop the necessary skills to land a real-life girl," the Post warns.

My go-to AI love guru Monica AI lists those skills as communication, empathy, respect, confidence, humor, patience, trustworthiness and self-awareness.

As British comedian Bob Monkhouse would say, once you learn how to fake that you've got it made.

But seriously folks, Ms. Herd hears dating app users' pain. She isn't wrong about focusing AI dating apps on the pre-dating part of the program.

There's no getting away from the fact of the matter: all marketing starts with the product.

If AI can stimulate and/or enhance the human characteristics described by AI above, users will be better people, love connections will be made and society will benefit. What are the odds?

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