I\u2019m single. Is it because I am emotionally avoidant, waiting on a unicorn, or under 6ft tall? Perhaps a spicy meatball of all three?<\/p>\n
Or could it be that I haven\u2019t used the magic of AI yet?<\/p>\n
As part of my six-weeks-long experiment in which I hand my life over to AI, I decide to use it to help me with my love life. I start by asking it to write my dating profile. So far, my experiment has only led me to experiment on myself, but this time, this will involve another innocent person.<\/p>\n
The AI goes to work. \u201cCreative type with nerd firmware and a fondness for novelty: new spots, odd museums, spontaneous plans, niche obsessions. Bring curiosity: I\u2019ll bring the plot twists.\u201d<\/p>\n
I squint at it. I sound like a Wes Anderson film.<\/p>\n
I scroll through profiles and notice a woman we\u2019ll call A (34 F, SE London). Her profile is mostly pictures of British shorthair cats; she\u2019s also into cat modeling. I\u2019m indifferent to felines, but A is very attractive.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to mislead her, so I tell her about my experiment: I\u2019m using AI to help me write my messages. If she fancies meeting, it will choose the date, and I\u2019ll rely on it for conversation prompts.<\/p>\n
Unbelievably, she\u2019s fine with this. People more or less do it all the time, she says. At least I\u2019m being upfront.<\/p>\n
We arrange a daytime cinema trip. What should I wear? I ask the chatbot. My date has an English degree, so it advises me to wear a turtleneck, dark jeans and boots or minimal trainers. OK.<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning! Still on for Marty Supreme?\u201d I text on the day. \u201cAre you more of a trailers-lover or a trailers-hater?\u201d She ignores that, but says she\u2019s coming. She\u2019s a bit rushed, she writes, and didn\u2019t have time to do her nails, but her hair\u2019s looking nice. \u201cNoted. Hair gets the attention today \u2013 nails are strictly off-camera. See you 11.20 by the tickets,\u201d I reply.<\/p>\n
If uncanny valley was a conversational style, it\u2019s this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was your favourite scene and character?\u201d I ask her immediately afterward, as instructed. She doesn\u2019t answer that, but does suggest lunch. I\u2019ve copy-pasted some AI lines into my Notes app, and refer to them as we walk.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fine to compliment her hair, as she brought it up, the AI advises. I check with her anyway, and proceed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat hair has pure A24 energy,\u201d I smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d she frowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s asking what that means\u201d I type, turning away. The AI feeds me a quick fix. \u201cAh \u2013 sorry, film brain,\u201d I smile, turning back. \u201cA24 is a studio that makes stylish, indie films. I just meant your hair has that cool, distinctive \u2018cinematic main character\u2019 vibe \u2013 like it belongs in a film.\u201d<\/p>\n
My date points out that I used the word \u2018film\u2019 three times in a row.<\/p>\n
Over lunch, she tells me about the part of London where she lives. When she goes to the bathroom, I feed ChatGPT the data. It sends me an informed but breezy line to try.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard Baird \u2013 the early TV guy \u2013 lived in your \u2019hood for a bit. Feels like the sort of fact a pub quiz would punish you for not knowing,\u201d I smile. She frowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly TV guy? Do you mean the inventor of the television?\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s hit upon a quirk of these AI lines \u2013 sometimes they\u2019re weirdly formal, but sometimes the opposite. People can be like that, too. But I\u2019m usually better at conversation than this. \u201cYes,\u201d I say \u2013 as myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you say AI things, your legs look shorter,\u201d A laughs. She means I\u2019m being stiff, unspontaneous. She levels with me: if someone had sent the messages I have, and she didn\u2019t know about the experiment, she wouldn\u2019t have come today. The messages sound emotionally intelligent, she concedes, yet something\u2019s off about them.<\/p>\n
I think about how the AI advised me to bring her a cat sticker or keyring (because she likes cats). One of its prompts was: \u201cTell me a cat modeling story, I\u2019m genuinely interested!\u201d I didn\u2019t use it; because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right to say you\u2019re genuinely interested in something, if you aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The artificial confidence of these lines make them worse than someone who\u2019s honestly nervous, A reflects. \u201cYou sound like a therapist who\u2019s been struck off.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re finally having a good time, ripping my AI-assisted personality apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood luck with the piece,\u201d A concludes, as we finish our tuna melts. \u201cAnd so you know, I much prefer you to \u2026 that other guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
AI is great at choosing date ideas. Relying on it for conversation, though, comes at a price of not trusting yourself \u2013 your own curiosity, ability to listen, and what you have to offer.<\/p>\n
I should say something balanced here, about how AI has its place. But what I really think is that every day we stray further from God\u2019s light, and are doomed.<\/p>\n
Rhik Samadder is a columnist, playwright and performer who co-runs the Tuscan Table, a creative writing retreat in Italy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m single. Is it because I am emotionally avoidant, waiting on a unicorn, or under 6ft tall? Perhaps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-378300","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-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}