Dos and don’t of using AI for online dating

The ChatGPT app is displayed on an iPhone in New York, May 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Whether you love or loathe generative AI chatbots, they’re becoming increasingly involved in the business of romance.

There’s understandable skepticism about the technology’s place in dating. Still, a growing number of people are turning to AI as a de facto dating coach or relationship expert. Some use the technology to get guidance on creating a dating app profile, decode messages from potential partners and draft replies or seek general dating advice.

But those inquiries can have varying degrees of success. Understanding how to best harness a chatbot’s power and acknowledging its limitations can help.

Here are some tips from experts.

AI should be your ‘wingman,’ not your ‘ghostwriter’

Logan Ury, the director of relationship science at the dating app Hinge, said she understands people’s hesitance about AI but however we search for love, “what we’re searching for stays the same.” Hinge has AI-powered conversation starters and feedback tools to help build users’ profiles and make interactions smooth.

Ury said AI should be like your wingman rather than your ghostwriter because “when you show up on that date, it’s very important that who your match meets is the person who they’ve been talking to online.”

Getting feedback on a dating app profile and asking for first date ideas based on the interests of your match are good uses of the technology in Ury’s opinion. She does not advise copying and pasting messages written by a chatbot or using generative AI to alter or create images of yourself.

Some believe AI should have an even more limited role, like dating coach Erika Ettin. Tasks like proofreading your dating profile or messages are as far as she advises going with a chatbot. Ettin urges those looking for love to strive for authenticity, not perfection.

“All I ask is for people to put their own thought and critical thinking in first, and then if they’re going to use AI to check something, it’s after they have already formulated an opinion,” Ettin said.

Ask the right questions

Many users are providing chatbots with “way too little and then expecting it to read their minds,” said Jules White, the director of Vanderbilt University’s initiative on the future of learning and generative AI.

The quality of the advice can vary significantly based on how you prompt the chatbot. Vague questions will likely yield a generic response. Specificity and question structure can get you a much more tailored result. But prompting isn’t about wordsmithing, contrary to some definitions, White said. It’s about learning how to “yield this computational thought effectively to solve problems.”

One technique White suggests is instructing your chatbot to ask questions of you. Users can input a prompt like, “Here’s what I’m trying to do. I want you to ask me questions one at a time until you have enough information to do that thing,” White said.

This way, the chatbot can adapt and change its next question based on users’ responses.

Prompts that help you think deeply about the situation are best, said Matt Shumer, a general partner at investment firm Shumer Capital and a prominent voice in the AI industry. Shumer advises people to tell their chatbots not to give them the answer, but “help me get there on my own.” In dating, an example would be presenting the chatbot with messages from a potential match you’re struggling to interpret and asking it to help you think about the situation like a dating coach would.

“Help me understand the nuance, how they might be thinking about it, what the right way to respond is, but don’t give me the answer,” Shumer said of how users could best communicate with a bot.

Understand the biases your chatbot (and you) have

Although many turn to AI because they think it will yield an objective response, the advice a chatbot can give you will only ever be as good as the information you feed it. And many chatbots are aiming to please you, so they’re more likely to tell you you’re right if you’re seeking advice about an argument or another complex situation.

If you only present your own perspective when asking for help with how to handle a fight with a partner, the chatbot likely wouldn’t be able to offer an objective take.

Liesel Sharabi, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University, said providing a chatbot with as much information as you can from both sides of a situation — yours and your partner’s — can help, but it isn’t a cure all for combating the sycophantic nature of the bot.

“Hopefully, if you were having a problem in your relationship you wouldn’t make all of your decisions based on what one friend told you, right? Don’t do that with AI either — use it as one data point among many,” she said.

Kaitlyn Huamani, The Associated Press