Dating apps exploit you, dating profiles lie to you, and sex is basically something old people used to do. You might as well consider it: can AI help you find love?<\/p>\n
For a handful of tech entrepreneurs and a few brave Londoners, the answer is \u201cmaybe\u201d.<\/p>\n
No, this is not a story about humans falling in love with sexy computer voices<\/a> \u2013 and strictly speaking, AI dating of some variety has been around for a while. Most big platforms have integrated machine learning and some AI features<\/a> into their offerings over the past few years.<\/p>\n But dreams of a robot-powered future \u2013 or perhaps just general dating malaise and a mounting loneliness crisis \u2013 have fuelled a new crop of startups that aim to use the possibilities of the technology differently.<\/p>\n Jasmine, 28, was single for three years when she downloaded the AI-powered dating app Fate. With popular dating apps such as Hinge and Tinder, things were \u201crepetitive\u201d, she said: the same conversations over and over.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, why not sign up, try something different? It sounded quite cool using, you know, agentic AI, which is where the world is going now, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n Fate, a London startup that went live last May, bills itself as the first \u201cagentic AI dating app\u201d. Its core offering is an AI personality named Fate that \u201conboards\u201d users during an interview, asking them about their hopes and struggles before putting forward five potential matches \u2013 no swiping involved.<\/p>\n Fate will also coach users through their interactions, if they desire, a functionality Jasmine described as helpful and another user said was \u201cscary\u201d and \u201ca bit like Black Mirror\u2019.<\/p>\n Rakesh Naidu, Fate\u2019s founder, demonstrated its coaching ability in an interview with the Guardian. \u201cI just feel a bit hopeless at the moment in regards to my chats. I feel like I\u2019m not being engaging enough or meaningful enough,\u201d he said into his phone. \u201cI just need some kind of meaningful questions I can ask to really uncover the essence of people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI hear you, Rakesh,\u201d said a synthetic female voice. \u201cHere are a few ideas. One, what\u2019s something you\u2019re passionate about that not many people know?\u201d<\/p>\n Naidu, 28, said he started Fate in order to address shortcomings in the world\u2019s biggest dating platforms \u2013 apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, which monetise<\/a> the time users spend on them and \u201care literally profiting off keeping people lonely\u201d.<\/p>\n Other startups, from Sitch to Keeper, have launched across the US, hoping AI features can provide the novelty to win them a share of a crowded market. Sitch leverages<\/a> the power of AI to manage vasts amounts of information, inviting users to \u201cgive us detailed feedback down to the hair colour, where they want to raise a family, and their fav music\u201d; Keeper says<\/a> it can find \u201ca match with rare and real soulmate potential\u201d.<\/p>\n Part of the issue, Naidu says, are algorithmic approaches to matchmaking: Tinder at one point ranked users\u2019 desirability through an Elo score, an algorithm originally used to rate chess players. On dating platforms, it\u2019s a Hobbesian proposition \u2013 high-scoring users are shown to other high-scoring users, low-scoring users to other low-scoring users. \u201cIt\u2019s very superficial,\u201d said Naidu.<\/p>\n AI, in theory, can offer a different way. Awkward as it may be to discuss your dating life with a chatbot, Fate does not rank you based on your responses, but instead uses an LLM to try to find other users who, based on their interview, might be similar to you. That approach, along with the AI dating coach, helps users to focus on authentic connection, said Naidu \u2013 \u201csimilarity and reciprocity of personality\u201d.<\/p>\n Amelia Miller, a consultant for Match Group (which owns Tinder and Hinge), worries about this approach.<\/p>\n A recent study from the group surveyed 5,000 Europeans about their online dating preferences \u2013 and found that while many were interested in AI tools to weed out fake profiles and flag toxic users, most, 62%, were skeptical about using AI to guide their conversations. One obvious anxiety might be the dystopian idea of two agentic AIs steering a conversation, with the humans nominally in charge turning into little more than meatspace mouthpieces.<\/p>\n Miller, however, who coaches people on their relationships with AI, says she sees many clients turn to an LLM for advice in the smaller, uncomfortable moments of building their relationships \u2013 asking AI how to craft a text, for example, or respond to an intimate question.<\/p>\n \u201cOften I\u2019m trying to make sure that people aren\u2019t turning to machines because turning to humans demands a level of vulnerability that has become uncomfortable now that there is an alternative,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The appeal of an AI coach such as Fate is that revealing yourself to it \u2013 your judgments, hopes and idiosyncrasies \u2013 involves no risk; it does not remember or evaluate. Friends do, and, says Miller, asking advice from them helps hone the skills for successful relationships.<\/p>\n \u201cAdvice is really one of the key ways that people practice vulnerability in a more low-stakes environment \u2013 they build up to more vulnerable moments in a romantic context.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeremias has been using Fate for several months. He said he doesn\u2019t use the AI coach: \u201cI could see it being helpful, but I mean there are obviously some concerns. Like the new generation are basically not going to have the real world experience of actually trying and failing.\u201d<\/p>\n The app recently helped him to meet someone after a long period of being single in London. He\u2019s not sure if this is because of the AI matching, or because Fate simply serves up only five matches at a time \u2013 no infinite swiping \u2013 and, excruciatingly, forces its users to write an explanation when they reject a potential match.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes the swiping more thoughtful. If I\u2019m actually saying no to this person, what are the reasons I\u2019m saying no to them?\u201d<\/p>\n He and Jasmine both have second dates upcoming, both after being single for several years, they say.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is exciting because you get like, you know, the butterflies in your stomach again, going on a date with someone, doing yourself up really nicely, wearing dresses, heels. It\u2019s fun,\u201d said Jasmine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dating apps exploit you, dating profiles lie to you, and sex is basically something old people used to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-481309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}