I'm pessimistic, but I don't know that this will fundamentally change online dating specifically. I fear that smooth talking chatbots will be used to manipulate people, but manipulating them into wanting to go on a date will just be one use case out of many (such as scams using them to convince people to hand over money).
I feel like online dating is already rewiring our brains to make us have more conventional, narrow romantic preferences that fit certain stereotypes, while providing us with an illusion of infinite partner choice and creating unreasonable expectations about finding the perfect person. In the short and medium term, AI will probably just make some or all of these things worse at the margins.
I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than a form of catfishing. It’s fine if someone wants to consult with others or even hire a coach to help communicate better, but outright outsourcing or plagiarizing is starting the relationship with deception and a betrayal of trust. It may be effective at getting a first date, but much like pictorial catfishing, that first date will crash immediately when the person’s personality and communication abilities don’t match the witty robot.
AI seems to me like it’s just going to be making all of our societal ills so much worse. There are too many people who are willing to do things that are only for profit/greed. I mean, companies pollute our air and waterways because, well, it’s cheaper to do that than try to mitigate harm. Companies put shit in our food (additives, HFCS, etc) because it’s helps their bottom line. AI is going to be like that. Who cares who’s harmed as long as someone’s making bank, right?
The hard thing about this is that, to some extent, dating is supposed to be hard.
Okay, maybe not as hard and hellacious as some people experience. After all, dating for many people involves a lot of work marketing and manicuring a specific image, often rooted in stereotypical gender norms. As you mention, we don't need Chat GPT to reinforce heteronormativity and gender binaries. We can do that just fine by ourselves, thank you very much.
Dating is supposed to be hard because relationships are hard. This is why I have a job as a couples and sex therapist.
Not everyone in the world has the same interests and goals for life and priorities as I do--in fact, very people do. And that's before we get to things like physical attraction and sexual alignment. When thinking about creating long-term relationships--having one is a value of mine--I'm much less willing to settle. So dating is about sifting out who does and does not align with my values and interests. That's exhausting!
The whole purpose of technology is to create efficiency, increase productivity, and hopefully make our lives a lot easier and happier. However, communication and relationship building are skills and areas where technology, from text to a reliance on virtual spaces, and now Chatbot-fishing, commonly interferes with healthy sexuality, conflict management, and emotional processing.
Lol! I've never considered a sexvangelical to be a person--we consider it to be a process. But since you asked :)
A sexvangelical is a person who grows up in what we call an EMPish (Evangelical, Mormon, Pentecostal) community who explores the complexities of sexuality (and thus relationships and communication), and in doing so, works their way out of the EMPish community, either because the EMPish community kicks them out (this happened to me), or, more commonly, they realize that their values no longer align with EMPish communities writ large.
I have never used a dating app myself--I've been insanely lucky when it comes to dating. But as a couples therapist, I see how technology completely transforms communication, most commonly leading to misinterpretation of communication (this happens a lot over text and apps) and a lack of behavioral risk taking around initiating sex.
Gen Zers are reporting non-virtual fewer sexual experiences than previous generations, and couples/sex researchers like myself believe that is primarily due to the questions that Liz is posing in her article: the ways that technological and virtual platforms remove some of the harder parts of dating (i.e. being in social spaces, soberly introducing yourself to strangers) lead to terrible communication strategies, from avoidance and inability to hold onto yourself in the stressors that come with sexuality to the presentation and propagation of rigid gender stereotypes.
What’s that Don Draper quote; “If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation.” Yes, I’m aware of the irony of quoting a MadMen character and I know it’s problematic on so many, many levels but it’s still solid advice.
Why are you “competing” on platforms that are saturated with so many men for whom you are a carbon copy? (Not you you, the generic you) There is only one you and if the you that is available is not finding success on the apps market, why are you there? Find another market; change the conversation.
Ok, THAT is my marketing voice, but my human voice is repulsed by the idea that human beings are “products” that exist in “markets.” Still, there is hope that the dating apps might now begin to be in our rear-view mirror and we might stop looking into the vast universe and start seeing other human beings who are closer to our orbits. It’s amazing how much we see within 10ft of us when we just start ... seeing...
Let’s see if dating apps start dying soon and AI accelerate that. The goal of dating apps is to generate traffic to serve demo data to advertisers. Once the advertisers start getting served crap data that are clearly not real eyeballs and belly buttons, they will implode. There are only so many people reading profiles and you can’t make new people at the speed AI demands...
people who meet on dating apps have a higher chance of a staying married than ppl who met IRL i don’t think they’re bad but it’s the way we use them that might not be working!
That is interesting. I wonder if that’s because in some sense the stakes are lower with people you meet online. We’re likely just to move on after 1-2 dates with someone we meet online who’s nice and all but with whom we’re not feeling a romantic connection, whereas we’re probably more likely to try to stick it out a little bit with, say, our friend’s friend or someone we met at work, school, etc. I’m guessing that dynamic leads to online daters being more selective, so that, among people who in fact find a marriage partner through an app, there is less “settling”? Could that have something to do with it?
I'm pessimistic, but I don't know that this will fundamentally change online dating specifically. I fear that smooth talking chatbots will be used to manipulate people, but manipulating them into wanting to go on a date will just be one use case out of many (such as scams using them to convince people to hand over money).
I feel like online dating is already rewiring our brains to make us have more conventional, narrow romantic preferences that fit certain stereotypes, while providing us with an illusion of infinite partner choice and creating unreasonable expectations about finding the perfect person. In the short and medium term, AI will probably just make some or all of these things worse at the margins.
i totally agree! i think online dating is exacerbating the bias that we already have when we approach dating!
I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than a form of catfishing. It’s fine if someone wants to consult with others or even hire a coach to help communicate better, but outright outsourcing or plagiarizing is starting the relationship with deception and a betrayal of trust. It may be effective at getting a first date, but much like pictorial catfishing, that first date will crash immediately when the person’s personality and communication abilities don’t match the witty robot.
Yeah tell that to Cyrano de Bergerac….
AI seems to me like it’s just going to be making all of our societal ills so much worse. There are too many people who are willing to do things that are only for profit/greed. I mean, companies pollute our air and waterways because, well, it’s cheaper to do that than try to mitigate harm. Companies put shit in our food (additives, HFCS, etc) because it’s helps their bottom line. AI is going to be like that. Who cares who’s harmed as long as someone’s making bank, right?
It’s terrifying.
yeah there’s definitely an element of outsourcing the one human thing we have left in this world!
The hard thing about this is that, to some extent, dating is supposed to be hard.
Okay, maybe not as hard and hellacious as some people experience. After all, dating for many people involves a lot of work marketing and manicuring a specific image, often rooted in stereotypical gender norms. As you mention, we don't need Chat GPT to reinforce heteronormativity and gender binaries. We can do that just fine by ourselves, thank you very much.
Dating is supposed to be hard because relationships are hard. This is why I have a job as a couples and sex therapist.
Not everyone in the world has the same interests and goals for life and priorities as I do--in fact, very people do. And that's before we get to things like physical attraction and sexual alignment. When thinking about creating long-term relationships--having one is a value of mine--I'm much less willing to settle. So dating is about sifting out who does and does not align with my values and interests. That's exhausting!
The whole purpose of technology is to create efficiency, increase productivity, and hopefully make our lives a lot easier and happier. However, communication and relationship building are skills and areas where technology, from text to a reliance on virtual spaces, and now Chatbot-fishing, commonly interferes with healthy sexuality, conflict management, and emotional processing.
Lol! I've never considered a sexvangelical to be a person--we consider it to be a process. But since you asked :)
A sexvangelical is a person who grows up in what we call an EMPish (Evangelical, Mormon, Pentecostal) community who explores the complexities of sexuality (and thus relationships and communication), and in doing so, works their way out of the EMPish community, either because the EMPish community kicks them out (this happened to me), or, more commonly, they realize that their values no longer align with EMPish communities writ large.
I have never used a dating app myself--I've been insanely lucky when it comes to dating. But as a couples therapist, I see how technology completely transforms communication, most commonly leading to misinterpretation of communication (this happens a lot over text and apps) and a lack of behavioral risk taking around initiating sex.
Gen Zers are reporting non-virtual fewer sexual experiences than previous generations, and couples/sex researchers like myself believe that is primarily due to the questions that Liz is posing in her article: the ways that technological and virtual platforms remove some of the harder parts of dating (i.e. being in social spaces, soberly introducing yourself to strangers) lead to terrible communication strategies, from avoidance and inability to hold onto yourself in the stressors that come with sexuality to the presentation and propagation of rigid gender stereotypes.
I mean if he sounded (or even better, sounded and looked) like Paul Bettany hell yeah I would…
i can appreciate that there’s a surplus of options on dating apps and that it’s hard for men
to distinguish themselves i’ve like how some apps have limited the number of matches in one day
What’s that Don Draper quote; “If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation.” Yes, I’m aware of the irony of quoting a MadMen character and I know it’s problematic on so many, many levels but it’s still solid advice.
Why are you “competing” on platforms that are saturated with so many men for whom you are a carbon copy? (Not you you, the generic you) There is only one you and if the you that is available is not finding success on the apps market, why are you there? Find another market; change the conversation.
Ok, THAT is my marketing voice, but my human voice is repulsed by the idea that human beings are “products” that exist in “markets.” Still, there is hope that the dating apps might now begin to be in our rear-view mirror and we might stop looking into the vast universe and start seeing other human beings who are closer to our orbits. It’s amazing how much we see within 10ft of us when we just start ... seeing...
Let’s see if dating apps start dying soon and AI accelerate that. The goal of dating apps is to generate traffic to serve demo data to advertisers. Once the advertisers start getting served crap data that are clearly not real eyeballs and belly buttons, they will implode. There are only so many people reading profiles and you can’t make new people at the speed AI demands...
people who meet on dating apps have a higher chance of a staying married than ppl who met IRL i don’t think they’re bad but it’s the way we use them that might not be working!
That is interesting. I wonder if that’s because in some sense the stakes are lower with people you meet online. We’re likely just to move on after 1-2 dates with someone we meet online who’s nice and all but with whom we’re not feeling a romantic connection, whereas we’re probably more likely to try to stick it out a little bit with, say, our friend’s friend or someone we met at work, school, etc. I’m guessing that dynamic leads to online daters being more selective, so that, among people who in fact find a marriage partner through an app, there is less “settling”? Could that have something to do with it?