Tinder Owner Signs ChatGPT Deal. Enjoy the AI Dating Tidal Wave
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
> The dating giant says it long term plan is to squeeze artificial intelligence into “literally everything” in its apps.
> The company celebrated its new partnership with a press release written by ChatGPT... It includes quotes supposedly penned by the AI itself, as though it has its own feelings about corporate strategy. “I’m thrilled that Match Group matched with me,” ChatGPT said. “Together, we’re not just breaking the ice; we’re melting it, and reshaping the way work gets done.”
Classic symptom of tech hype. Remember when companies were trying to squeeze "the blockchain" into literally everything?
Around 2017 I worked for a fintech company who was going to "sprinkle in some blockchain" everywhere, and it was an unmitigated disaster. I kept thinking "Why, again, can't we just use a database for this?" In fairness to our execs, every time we said we'd sprinkle in some blockchain we'd get a higher valuation and more funding from VCs, so there was that incentive...
With AI, while again I feel it's overhyped, I personally get tons of value in my day-to-day work life with ChatGPT, e.g. having it summarize documentation for features I'm not aware of, quickly writing some snippets of code for me, looking up some relevant regulations, etc. (and before the cries of "BUT HALLLLUCINATIONS!!!" - I know, I'm not an idiot, I use ChatGPT for the start of my investigations, not the end).
So I see tons of real value in AI (even if I also see tons of places where that little "magic star" icon is starting to get really annoying) in a way where I never saw commensurate value in blockchain.
For example, I love how ChatGPT lets me "search" for things when I don't even know the name/keywords of things to search for, but instead I can ask it in natural language for example "I'm trying to generate this kind of view in SQL, how would I do that?" - at the very least ChatGPT will inform me of some json operator or window function I didn't know about, so now at least I'm "grounded" in what to search for. And I think more importantly, even if search did bring back the exact correct webpage in answer to my question, the interactive nature of ChatGPT and the ability to ask it questions specific to my detailed, individual use case are invaluable and just much faster.
(ChatGPT is merely decently good, not perfect or anywhere near close. But it’s still useful.)
With Tinder, I’m already persuaded I’m paying $30pm to chat with 70% bots, and there are countless memes saying “Say potato” to botgirls who always answer the same scripts;
But Tinder partnering with ChatGPT to fake profiles that increase customer value?
The US doesn't have regulations that protect workers and consumers. The few regulations we have are all ultimately to protect capital.
Is it really? I think if anything Tinder has been disastrous for dating, and the place where people need to go to meet real people..is in real life.
Or does chatGPT end up being an alternate dog-wingman like where dogs in the park introduce their masters to each other?
They bought 1000 licenses to develop code. It does not affect users. At least as it's stated in the clickbait article.
Clearly the purpose here is to weed out fraud and abuse more easily by analyzing chats between users. I'd welcome it. I'm pretty sure some dating apps already do this, both with text and images, but ChatGPT is probably better at it.
<meme>Is it though?</meme>
It's also pretty widely known that a lot of the big dating websites started out with a bunch of first-party fake profiles and activity, because nobody joins a dating website that doesn't have any users. Usually once the site becomes successful though they get rid of the first-party fake activity though.
So first-party bots and bots that are active right now on the major sites are both plausible. Just maybe not first-party bots that are active on the major sites right now.
They're going to be unknowingly chatting with bots.
It's a logical extension of things that are well established are happening: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38447794
It's one of the purest examples of short term business thinking I can imagine. Will this goose this quarter's revenue? Heck yeah. But there may not be a dating app market at all in three years once the public realizes that "dating apps" are just fancy wrappers around ChatGPT built to "drive engagement" by making damned sure you don't actually ever enter into a long term relationship with an actual human.
It seems dating apps will be leading the way into fulfilling the Dead Internet Theory.
Anyhow, I expect them to announce something a lot more innocuous but do something a lot less innocuous. It doesn't have to be exactly what I said, which would be pretty blatant, though personally I have absolutely no problem imagining it would happen, but it'll be something that if someone just directly described it to you without sugar coating it you'd find offensive, I guarantee it. The game theory all but guarantees it; if $YOU don't do it, someone else will, so it may as well be $YOU. Basically a tragedy of the commons.
This distrust is already building around us right now, it's not a theory. I don't live in Silicon Valley and I think that can sometimes help serve as a counterpoint to an excessively SV-view of the world here on HN sometimes. The normies in my life are already talking about this sort of thing, unprompted by me. Dating apps may be the vanguard but there's plenty of things charging behind them.
Game theory does not guarantee that everything turns to shit; that sort of glib summary makes me think you don't know what the tragedy of the commons even is, or the obvious application to a race to the bottom in this particular segment. Again, it's not like it's some brand new hypothesis that dating apps do scummy things to drive engagement; I gave an example. I find people's touching child-like faith that a known-scummy portion of the market won't do some other scummy thing once the opportunity presents itself to be simply incomprehensible. Plenty of people aren't nice, especially people already doing scummy things. Psychopaths are real and do real things to real people in the real world, not some sort of hypothetical construction dreamed up by disconnect ivory tower psychologists as a theoretical test case.
Baseless assertion. If people get sick of dating apps because they somehow all end up being full of bots, someone can make a new dating app where the primary selling point is that they prevent or minimise bots, maybe using some kind of human vetting process. Many people would then use that app.
> faith that a known-scummy portion of the market won't do some other scummy thing
I have no such faith. I did acknowledge that parts of the market can degrade, and that you might even be right that bots will ruin most existing dating apps. That could happen. But the idea that this would definitely spell the end of all dating apps is just an assertion you are making with no evidence.
One of the trends that I notice is that there are many more 'AI dating coach' services that seem geared at helping people continue interesting conversations or appear funnier or more intelligent than they are.
I see the appeal, as my wife will be the first to tell you I do not do well over text, but I can't help but see these as totally immoral tools.
I think the end result will be that people will get a sense for when an AI is talking to them, in the same way we have a sense for fake accounts. But as these tools get better, that might not be the case.
Also, I look forward to seeing people on dates that were arranged by their respective agents lol.
Is grammarly immoral? Or spell checks? Or googling “good text responses to a hinge match?”
I don’t like the idea of chatting with an ai on behalf of a human, but I don’t know if it’s immoral.
I expect that we’ll just do more FaceTimes and rely on Apple to cut out ai layers of video.
Not sure if it makes online dating better or worse.
If someone feels like they're speaking to grammarly, or a generic response from google they heard before, they revert to judging you by your looks as usual. If you are ugly none of the AI crap will work.
A person below the attractiveness threshold gets basically no matches, so no chance to talk. A person above the threshold gets a huge number of "already motivated" matches, so no need for good talk. Conversation quality only matters for the small number of marginal cases (maybe 20% of users)
The funny characteristic was that the number also matched me with my long term girlfriend and got him a single girl that he was interested in. I generally agree with your assessment, but I'd say out of 20% you still couldn't determine the AI user's intentions.
I've texted for my friends and I could get them a date or hookup but honestly when there's no motivation for them to do it themselves, it's a waste of time, they were not interested except to determine their conversation skills were the issue and not their looks.
Is it immoral to hire a dating coach to help with your profile?
Or a coach to revise your resume?
I think there’s some balance, but I think the key point is that the person takes responsibility for however they put together messages. Although interestingly, I guess it worked for the other person as they dated for a bit and I think he achieved his goal of dating this person.
If they are literally just having ChatGPT write messages whole cloth then they will suffer detection in person. But I think that’s more stupidity than morality.
I did have a friend mention how she dated someone who was amazing and thoughtful by text but very different in person or on the phone.
If you're a man, you're probably going to want AI to "assist" you with replies to maximize your chances of success with your (relatively few) matches. If you're a woman, you're going to want AI to manage the dozens of conversations in-flight at any given time. We're probably moving toward a world where AIs are flirting with AIs totally open loop.
Why not treat it like a job hunt or a sales process? Figure out requirements, optimize your profile to attract mates with those requirements?
Sure, “seed” the matches by reaching out to profiles which meet your requirements. Try sending intelligent messages, catchy subject line etc. Stand out. Tighten your efforts to mates you find strong compatibility with.
The more that AI is used in dating apps, where human connection is basically the entire product, the less people will use them.
Oh well, Torment Nexus gonna torment.
My guess is that this will be disastrous for the platform if it makes it into the actual chat. Profile writing may be useful. I feel like women would feel deeply uncomfortable with enshittified messaging, since they would no longer be able to tell who is genuine and who is a serial killer. The only way it could work is if there was disclosure "Bob is using AI for this conversation", which defeats the reason Bob likely wants to use AI to talk to Alice.
EDIT: I am aware people are already using ChatGPT to message their matches, but I feel like this would pour gasoline on the fire.
- do they have a habit of typin lyk dis?
- do they really read?
- do they reply in a timely and proper manner?
- are their pictures really current? (God, this! If only AI solves just this)
Yup. Sue me! But I’ll take that and I think AI can do at least some of these.
Online dating is so fucked up and skewed in different ways to different sides that probably any change might potentially be an improvement. And for a lot of people online dating is literally the only way left when it comes to dating.
Right now the hardest part of online dating is just getting a conversation going. Women have far too many choices and men have none.
Women need AI to show them who they would best get along with. Men need AI to get women to talk to them.
How about this: people need to fucking go outside, get hobbies, meet real people in the real world.
I can talk untech and talk tech.
But what the hell am I suppose to do to meet those where I'm a goth who uses FreeBSD, goes for evening strolls picking up litter for enjoyment, cynical enough that wants to see the earth burn while an environmentalist who has a dream of opening an animal sanctuary? Goes to the gym, sword fences and finds most of life bullshit oh and also a sword fencer and fire juggler?
Has his shit together, mortgage and 35?
Next up: HN dating.
I'll be a little blunt. You're not (and almost none us are) as much as a special snowflake as you may believe. Nearly everyone has unique and niche interests.
But more importantly, your post seems to propose the idea that we should all be interested in the same things as our romantic partners. Where does this idea come from? Sure, I think it's important to share some things you like to do together, but I think it's much more important to share the same value system and ideals. Hobbies are just details. I don't care if my partner sword fences or not, but I do care that they can see it's important to me, and cares enough about my happiness to know that I should seek out and do the things I love.
I'm not wanting nor advertising nor where everything much match 100% in common. That would be silly.
I was just making a figure of speech that my interests, are those which are not topic of conversation that you would have at a bar or tavern nor really any other place were you would socialise to court.
If the other party cannot resonate with the other persons hobbies or interests than as much care and love you give, it won't last; I'm just happy with fun and personality if I were to scrap all above.
But I still hold belief that of if there are not mutual interests between one and another then the relationship cant grow.
I don't disagree.
Love and Care are ever so important; they are the basics to form the spark, to light the candle, however.
The other party are too needing to be ready to engage in the passions you enjoy and that to share my passions I would need to take interest in vice versa. Incompatibilities are true and its not a percentage.
Would you be ready to play with fire? Go out on cold wet rainy night with a litter picker and carry a dripping wet trash bag ring? Listen to me ramble on how I've configured vtnet jails which allows me to host jailed bhyve VMs?
Because for me, the personality type I am is someone who would like to do them with me. The same goes for me if I was to be in a relationship I would like to do what you would want to do too. Compiling kernels till 2am and then going litter picking is my idea of fun. If not dorky.
Not everything is going to gel but the comprise is to find an equal balance you both enjoy. That however only comes from an established relationship, which is hard when you don't connect and they don't give you the benefit of the doubt.
My gripe is that when it comes to IT unless your kitted in the IT world its boring as * to anyone else. Goth is a niche outlet, stomping boots and wearing black isn't everyones taste and fire spinning is out there but fencing is an commitment.
I don't hold the "woe is me, single forever" maturity. Life is too short for that. It will either will, or it won't. It's hard and depressing at times but hey, I'm proud of what I have interests in.
It's not talking, it's more in generalities of what I enjoy is what is the niche.
One story is that I was in Canada recently and was talking to a bloke on the bench listening to how he was kicked out and someone cheated on his wife.
Although, whether to believe these stories is another thing. Sometimes people just want to be herd.
The relationship isn't the problem. The meeting is.
in that vein, what you're looking for is like 0.1%, and they may already be married. you're better off learning how to relate to the normies than holding out hope for any of that.
The truth is most people are meeting their spouses in the apps, as painful as it is. Bars are far worse for most people, and many people don't want to get hit on at the gym, while running errands, or at their job.
Is that what women need?
So many of my girlfriends are single... this is not how I would phrase the issue. By and large, men are looking to get laid, women are looking to get serious. If a woman only wants to get laid, sure, the world is her oyster as long as she's young and conventionally attractive. If a man wants to get serious... he's gotta differentiate himself against the hordes of guys out there who just wanna get laid (many of whom present themselves as serious).
I've been doing this online dating thing since... well, I met my first romantic partner on a BBS. It seems to me that what men and women want has significantly diverged over time. So when you conclude,
> Women need AI to show them who they would best get along with. Men need AI to get women to talk to them.
I gotta say, nah. We don't "need" those things. Technology is not bringing us closer; I think that it is significantly responsible for this divergence. What we need to do, I believe, is return to meatspace.
When you have 2000 guys in your inbox, it's hopeless to try an find the right guy (who also isn't the "right guy" for every other woman).
I'm tellin ya, meatspace also has thousands of dudes, their number isn't the problem. It's the underlying premise, that we should rely on technology for matchmaking and socialization in general. If we go with your approach, prompt engineers will float to the surface. Which probably sounds great to so many dudes here, but it still ain't what most women want.
The apps have done to dating what social media has done to attention spans.
Here's an interview with the founder. (You have to fast-forward to the 10-minute mark.) https://abc7news.com/14425374/
Also this: https://abc7news.com/14426891/