AI 'wingmen' bots to write profiles and flirt on dating apps

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/08/ai-wingmen-bots-to-write-profiles-and-flirt-on-dating-apps

by 01-_- • 1 year ago

40 77 1 year ago

kylecazar• 1 year ago

"may degrade an already precarious online environment"

Not may, will.

Furthermore, I will never wrap my head around why people would use AI for a use-case like this. It entirely defeats the purpose of interacting with people. If you are awkward, with enough time you will either find someone who is also awkward, or someone who doesn't care/finds it endearing.

Having a bot generate dialog for you is a weird step backward.

01-_-• 1 year ago

I agree

swatcoder• 1 year ago

You're completely right.

But people on dating apps are all of: frustrated, desperate, bored, exhausted, insecure, and frivolous, etc

For many (of all genders), any opportunity to distance themselves from those feelings while still imagining some kind of success is going to be enticing.

asah• 1 year ago

I believe the argument is that tools/bots can help a person's self confidence.

This argument breaks down when the other side is using a bot to respond, which of course they are.

pinko• 1 year ago

I will never wrap my head around why people would use AI for a use-case like this

If your sociopathic goal is solely to trick someone into an in-person date at which they might be too socially insecure (or too desperate for companionship) to decline sex, then it's a win for the person faking themselves.

This is definitely a sign that online dating apps as a whole are circling the drain, though.

lazide• 1 year ago

Dating apps were never legitimate interaction anyway.

awongh• 1 year ago

The bot is just a symptom of the weird social dynamics at play inside a dating app, where in a heterosexual environment, the women recieve an unmanageable number of messages and the men need to send/respond to an unmanageable number of messages in order for both parties to agree to meet up in real life.

Everyone agrees that most of the point of a dating app should be to figure out if real-life interaction is pleasant and agreeable, but for lots of reasons it's difficult to get to that point.

cardanome2• 1 year ago

The way people select a mate on dating apps is very different than how people judge potential mates when meeting them in real life.

Someone could be bad at texting and writing profiles but actually charming and a good fit to you when given the chance to have an actual date.

The idea so use a tool that helps you over the initial hurdle so you get a chance in the first place isn't that far fetched. Also speaking personally, I dislike texting and find dating apps a huge time waster, so automating the process sounds like a good idea.

I am not sure AI is the solution but the problem is real.

kelseyfrog3• 1 year ago

Dating apps commodify meeting people. Any time something is commodified, it undergoes a distortion, first to meet the demands of being a commodity, and then to meet the demands of the market in which it's disseminated.

AI, if easier and worse, has the potential to accelerate the decline of online dating - already a hellscape - into something so terrible it is easier to avoid. AIAcc is a legitimate stance in the face of this.

JetSpiegel• 1 year ago

Someone could be bad at texting and writing profiles but actually charming and a good fit to you when given the chance to have an actual date.

As documented in Cyrano, hundreds of years ago.

mrshadowgoose• 1 year ago

Depends on one's goals. If simply hooking up is the objective, although it's disingenuous/dishonest, this would improve one's odds.

cs702• 1 year ago

Mass-market online dating apps are already a minefield of phony/fake and spammy/scammy content.

AI will make it so much worse, so quickly.

I wonder if this will spark a return to more old-fashioned methods for finding dates.

shalg• 1 year ago

Probably will slightly increase old fashioned methods. More likely though it’s going to accelerate social isolation :/

ta1265342111• 1 year ago

Here i can also add a story:

Last year, i recognized a lady who also exits the same metro & bus at the same station sometimes, so i was looking forward that i will see her again one day. This happened: I have to note im somewhat above the average body height, as she is: id say she was around 1.89m, my own size - apart from the fact that i found her beautiful, i thought it would be somehow a "higher chance" to get to known her, since for tall women its actually not easy (if you are ~1.89m and you want someone who is at least the same size, 90%+ men are out!) and i "projected" that she may notice this. So when i saw her leaving the bus, i spoke to her and invited here to a coffee - she looked at me completely confused like i was trying to rob her. (it was a "daylight situation" short after lunch)

Not required to say that she never called back after handing her my number :-)))

luqtas2• 1 year ago

almost all of the popular ones have photo verification and you can limit yourself on interacting with photo-verified (Tinder even have ID auth) users only

ta1265342111• 1 year ago

How would you prove in front of court that this verification icon was not placed by the app development company? :-)

deadbabe• 1 year ago

In my experience I’ve found that people can struggle on real life dates regardless of whether they used AI or not. Sending messages back and forth, having minutes or hours to craft a perfect response is far different than having a conversation in person. That smooth talker who said all the right things in text turns out to be nothing more than a fumbling marble mouth in person.

That’s why if you’re online dating you need to be ready to meet in person right away, otherwise you’re wasting your time. A long conversation is not going to make you any less likely to be killed by a serial killer nor does it weed out guys just looking for sex. If someone looks good and doesn’t open with cringe or creepy lines just meet in a neutral place for coffee or drinks and take it from there, you may be glad you did. Don’t overthink it.

AI Dating Bots are a lie sold to people who think better messages are the key to success. The truth is your success has always depended on luck, the right match at the right time.

Arkhadia• 1 year ago

I enjoyed reading your thoughts here. I’ve been saying it for years how dating apps capitalize on the same addiction and human traits that casinos do.

jfengel2• 1 year ago

That came as a shift for me. In the early aughts I had long online conversations before meeting. I took it as a way to show that I was serious.

One of those turned into a decade long relationship, and when I returned, the time horizon was much shorter. I think too many women had been jerked around by men who never wanted to meet (perhaps because they were married).

Things have shifted yet again with the prevalence of bots and scammers. Which is too bad, because it had been an environment that suited me well: getting to know someone in a safe way, and to show them who I was.

gedy2• 1 year ago

Online "dating" that involves texting is just such a terrible fit.

Most people either have poor reading comprehension or lack ability to write clearly, and that's the worst combo for relationship building.

It's really no surprise that "dating" apps devolve into clicking a picture and hooking up for sex.

johnisgood2• 1 year ago

Texting only sure sucks, you need to be on cam and talk through the mic at the very least.

ta1265342111• 1 year ago

actually, id say this would kill the business: Most people look on cam much less attractive than in real life, also most people do not like to interact per video immediately (apart from the fact that with todays deepfake-AI tools one could be easily a victim to ID-theft etc.)

jfengel2• 1 year ago

In my experience, women who don't communicate well via text also don't communicate well in person. Dyslexia is a real thing, and there are other challenges, but when I got a bad feeling from her written communication it boded very badly for a date.

I don't date men, but the women I've dated often say that's their experience as well. Of course, those are women who also matched my communication style, so that may not generalize.

gedy2• 1 year ago

That’s true, I’ve seen examples of someone jumping to conclusions or taking the worst possible interpretation of a text, which is probably a red flag even in real life, face-to-face communication

Carrok• 1 year ago

So happy I’m married already. Dating today seems like such a nightmare and this will only make it worse.

ta1265342111• 1 year ago

Coming out of nearly exactly 12.75 years long-term-relationship and trying currently these apps, i can confirm to you: TRUE.

I do not know whats up with the people: Couple of weeks ago i had a dad, she had also 2 children; during the discussion it turned out that they have a battle regarding who is responsible for cleaning the bathroom+WC; i was shocked about their frequency (3 people!), so i said: why dont just get a cleaning support? In my language, there is a difference between male and female wording - since its very "common language", i used the "female version" of the cleaning support personel as most people do over here - then i got a punch for how irrespectful and sexist i am for using this wording and why i do not use a "neutral" version.

ta1265342111• 1 year ago

why do i get downvoted here on a story that happened in real life?

Oarch• 1 year ago

It's very brute force. The apps often ignore filters you've set - even those you've paid for access to!

It's partly just a feeling but I can sometimes feel changes in the algorithm and they're never for the better, unfortunately.

redeux• 1 year ago

This is not the future we need. Humans need real emotional connection. Hell, it’s right in the middle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and fundamental to both self-esteem and self-actualization[0].

In order to develop true friendship, whether plutonic or romanic, there has to be a base of authenticity. Otherwise the relationship is built on deceit and will eventually erode. Obviously inserting an AI between you and a potential friend or parter is not in line with building the foundation of a healthy relationship.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

maratc• 1 year ago

But maybe if both sides are using AI bots, then the two bots fall on the same level of authenticity, and then it's not a problem.

I have a feeling that shortly it's gonna be all robots talking to robots.

maxdoop• 1 year ago

Black mirror episode about exactly this

Aurornis2• 1 year ago

Otherwise the relationship is built on deceit and will eventually erode.

From watching friends use dating apps and go on dates: People with misleading profiles don't get very far. The lies get spotted quickly, often on the first date.

The people who play these games seem to be hoping that the other person will look past it, or that they can charm their way around it if they could just lie their way to the first encounter.

For 100% of my friends, it's a dealbreaker when they discover someone has been lying.

This isn't limited to text. The most common one is when people use photos from 5-10 years ago. I've heard so many stories of people arriving to first dates and barely recognizing the person because they're a decade older or significantly less physically fit. At this point it's almost like they're pleasantly surprised when the person they meet looks like their profile pictures.

cardanome2• 1 year ago

I don't disagree with your main point but you really overstate Maslow’s hierarchy quite a bit.

It is a framework to start thinking about how needs can be prioritized but is does not necessary reflect the actual hierarchy of needs of individuals which is very culturally, economically and well individually dependent. People are naturally different and have different needs. Humans are way too complex for such a simple pyramid to provide accurate answers.

JasserInicide• 1 year ago

It's not the future we need but it's the one we deserve. This place is heavily complicit in the popularity of AI. It creams its pants any time a new LLM is announced.

kelseyfrog3• 1 year ago

We have the power to construct systems where this is disincentivized.

However, no one seems to believe that's possible despite being the ones that built the systems in the first place. It seems we're only able to build social systems by accident which incidentally is the worst way of doing it.

smusamashah• 1 year ago

This is a low tech replication of black mirror episode where a guy and girl fell in love with each other after first date. Realised something is wrong with the world and tried to exit the simulation. In the real world, those two were decided by AI as a match because these two passed the challenge together in simulation.

satvikpendem2• 1 year ago

I read a short story once, maybe by Ted Chiang of Stories of Your Life fame which inspired Arrival, it talked about how there was a similar system for dating in their world, bots writing for other bots, that eventually the AI got so powerful that it knew who your soulmate was out of everyone in the world and it would tell you.

What the people in the story grappled with was, would you truly want to meet your supposed soulmate or would you want to exercise your free will to find them yourself, even if perhaps that were a suboptimal process?

Edit: the story was The Perfect Match by Ken Liu [0]

[0] https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-perfect-match...

im3w1l• 1 year ago

Batch ten predicted couples and put them all in a speed dating event so they can have the illusion of picking each other.

lucianbr• 1 year ago

I don't know. If my doctor tells me I need to take a certain pill to get better when I am sick, I don't grapple with the lack of free will. I really don't want to take my chances by choosing medications myself. What would be the point of that? Especially in the hypothetical situation where the doctor is perfect, or nearly so.

This feels more like cope than anything. We are stuck in an imperfect situation and tell ourselves it's better this way.

sofixa• 1 year ago

If my doctor tells me I need to take a certain pill to get better when I am sick, I don't grapple with the lack of free will. I really don't want to take my chances by choosing medications myself. What would be the point of that? Especially in the hypothetical situation where the doctor is perfect, or nearly so.

Unfortunately (in the vast majority of cases), a lot of people do. They "do their own research" and go with healing cristals/essential oils, or choose a treatment "compatible with their religion" or some other nonsense. What you're describing is rational (delegating decision making in certain spheres, within reason, to educated people in those spheres), but a lot of people aren't.

satvikpendem2• 1 year ago

Taking medicine is vastly different than finding love, for most people (even if many do in fact refuse a doctor's orders to exercise their free will too, to their detriment). In fact, for examples of the latter, there are many stories in media about characters going against the grain of what their society expects of them simply so that they can experience their own free will, just as the story I linked.

The "point, " so to speak, in the context of relationships, is that people do prefer to have a suboptimal choice if they can feel like they are the ones that made it. You should read the story that I linked that delves more into this.

qoez• 1 year ago

One perspective is that we already have a number of long since normalized 'genetic fitness' obfuscators in the shape of makeup and surgery. It's an arms race but both sides are smart enough to be aware of the fakery and start seeking costly non fakable signals instead.

haswell• 1 year ago

I found myself single in my late 30s after a long relationship ended.

Dipping my toe in the water with the apps was not an experience that I enjoyed. I met my ex online at a time when people didn’t admit they met online. That was a far better time for online dating.

What I know with absolute certainty is that adding AI to the pre-meeting process is exactly the opposite of what I want, especially if that means I’m not interacting with the real person.

I already have a strongly stated “if we’re both interested based on our profiles, let’s just meet for coffee ASAP” preference, and the best dates have been with people who felt the same way. Anything else (aside from maybe a video call) just means we’re both building images of each other that may not be real. People are very different in person in many cases. Add an AI in the middle, and this is even worse.

I wholly agree with the point that adding an AI layer is just taking an already suboptimal situation and making it immediately worse.

I can’t help but feel like this is a market ripe for disruption. If the big apps start featuring AI, I think this becomes even more true.

onemoresoop• 1 year ago

Couldn’t agree more. AI is an extra layer of indirection and distorted expectations that are not needed in dating apps. Imagine a world where AI agents that deal with other AI agents deciding what’s good for you. What could go bad?

tmpz22• 1 year ago

I actually met some of the people building these types of company, they completely blank when you bring up ethical concerns and unintended consequences. I'd love a townhall event with one of them just so the world could see the type of men behind these dating apps.

ryandrake• 1 year ago

To be fair, a lot of professional programmers (regardless of application / industry) completely blank when you bring up ethical concerns of their work. As long as they're being paid and it's an [interesting | challenging | hot] technology, they're more than happy to turn a blind eye toward the application they're actually building. "Hey, I'm just moving protobufs around, it's not my fault my company uses it to build the Torment Nexus!"

apwell23• 1 year ago

late 30s is the prime dating market for men when scales tip towards their favor. enjoy!!

ehsankia• 1 year ago

I was almost exactly in the same situation as you. In my 20s, I remember using OKCupid, but the OKCupid I found when I tried again in my 30s was very different (it is owned by Match afterall). All the apps were very similar, and the only chance I had of actually getting anywhere was sinking a ton of money into them. I was heavily active on 3-4 apps and vaguely active of 3-4 others, for nearly a year. I think I sunk ~$500 into the apps, with maybe 2 dozen dates to show of it.

Part of the problem is the abundance of profiles. We get trained to judge people on a very superficial level, because there's just too many people to properly analyze. I found myself going through phases of trying to swipe everyone right, and then through phases of being a lot more picky and swiping left of anyone that had the smallest flaw.

You're right that at the end of the day, the best way was to meet people IRL asap and get to know them that way. That being said, for busy full time adults, that's still a lot of work and effort.

Dating I find is especially hard for people who don't have third spaces. For introverts hanging out online. You can have third spaces online (twitch, discord, gaming communities), but it's harder to find local people there.

Aurornis2• 1 year ago

It's interesting to see the strong negative reactions to this. I people are reading this and imagining themselves on the receiving end of an AI-enhanced profile or chat.

Contrast that with the reactions any time there's an article about AI-assisted resume generation or job applications: The sentiment in HN comments (and in many places across the internet) is that using AI to write a resume and apply for jobs should be fair game because it's all a dumb process and companies can't accurately judge resumes anyway. You just need to say the right things to get past the gatekeeper so you can impress them in person (sound familiar?).

I think the primary difference is whether people think of the AI as helping them, or being used against them (with a layer of anti-corporate angst, of course).

Regardless, the premise appears to be the same: Use AI to game the system that people use to filter introductions, then hope that you can impress the other party once you're in front of them and talking naturally.

Personally, I feel like I've seen this fail more than it succeeds. Even before AI it wasn't uncommon for people to use misleading dating app photos or to exaggerate claims on resumes. Once the other party discovers you've been misleading them, they begin to wonder what else you're lying about.

The best case I can think of for these AI tools is people who struggle to write positively about themselves or who have poor self-awareness about the things they write. I've met a lot of people who are simply bad at writing, especially when it comes to themselves. Having an AI act as an impartial coach could help.

Using AI as a bot to flirt with people on dating apps through chat (mentioned in the article) just feels like a losing strategy, though, unless your goal is to play a numbers game.

drudolph914• 1 year ago

Contrast that with the reactions any time there's an article about AI-assisted resume generation The sentiment in HN comments (and in many places across the internet) is that using AI to write a resume and apply for jobs should be fair game

These 2 scenarios don’t have any commonality. You’re comparing how AI is being used in two different types of “social games” that have wildly different stakes. The stakes make this incomparable.

Dating apps are about fostering human connection. AI posing as a person is the opposite of human connection

Meanwhile, not having a job for the vast majority people means you can’t eat. The system shouldn’t punish people for using a tool that helps them find work to survive

drivingmenuts• 1 year ago

I understand the argument in favor of - I suffer from severe social anxiety when it comes to meeting women. But, even as much as I might desire (or even need) a "wimgman", this is not the answer. People need to meet the real you, online or otherwise, else they're going to face major disappointment later on.

This app isn't helping.

mettamage• 1 year ago

But those “struggling users” who may be lacking in social skills, and begin to rely on AI assistants to craft conversations for them, may have difficulty once they arrive on real-life dates, without the use of their phone to help them converse. This could lead to anxiety and further retreat into the comfort of the digital space, a group of academics has claimed.

It may also not for some of them. For me, digital vs IRL is a different experience. My style of communicating is different.

It could also erode the trust users have in the authenticity of others on the app. Who is using AI and who is a genuine, flesh-and-blood human tapping away behind the screen?

This is already a general issue for the whole internet, not just online dating.

If certain people struggle with social skills, they should get social skills training. Dating coaches exist. They're not cheap but exist.

Many single people say that it has never been more difficult to find a loving relationship.

I agree, my last dating period was 3 years ago. It required a lot more skill than 15 years ago.

homogenising profiles

This is already happening based on my experience. But they do forget though that during the dates the homogeneity goes out of the window by quite a bit. It's only the online part that has this.

But proponents of dating app AI say that assistants and “dating wingmen”, as they’re known, could help reduce dating app fatigue

Not really as the recipient will now be wondering whether an AI is talking to her/him. So the fatigue is transferred.

Last year, product manager Aleksandr Zhadan programmed ChatGPT to swipe through and chat to more than 5,000 women on his behalf on Tinder. Eventually, he met the woman who is now his fiancée.

That worked because it's still a growth hack. Not many people are doing it. The moment that many people are doing it, this probably won't work anymore. I made a simple autoswiper too, swiped through 200K profiles and found my wife that way. I did the chatting on my own because ChatGPT 3.5 couldn't keep up with my playfulness. Also, the chatting for me served as an anchor to start the date off with a blast. I specifically remember when I met my wife on our first date that I was groggy and cranky due to a severe lack of sleep. But when we met, one of us used callback humor from our Tinder conversation and our time with each other has been hype ever since. If I'd had used ChatGPT there, that date may have started off less well since I wouldn't know any of the playful things I'd have mentioned.

pndjk• 1 year ago

and we wonder why there's a "loneliness epidemic". Give me a break

antman223• 1 year ago

I actually got a girlfriend through automation lol. So its actually really funny that we all go through the same problem in online dating especially on apps like Hinge. I tried to search for solutions out there that help with the swiping part so I can focus on getting matches. I literally am a person that likes to live offline and spend less time on these apps and focus more of my time doing productive things. But that being said living in a big city gets lonely and its hard to even socialize after a long day of work so you have to go back to the apps. I started searching for solutions around this same exact problem and theres a website theloveguru.ai which literally does this for Hinge+ users. So I used it, but to be fair it didn't work immediately cause you get a lot of matches and luck wasn't on my side, I was still getting ghosted (maybe my profile sucked), but ultimately on my 800th match in New York I vibed well with my date (now my girlfriend) and I guess it is a numbers game at the end of the day. I personally think AI is taking over a lot of things even in the dating apps industry. Like theres AI photo enhancers already that make you look 10X better and then automation and AI wingmen for messages etc. I kind of view it as a numbers game now but yeah curious to know what ya'lls experience has been.

AI 'wingmen' bots to write profiles and flirt on dating apps

Related Stories