There is a certain amount of mental work and hurdles in thinking about how to compose a report [on a dating app]Lloyd said. It’s like starting a term paper.
Designed to act as a digital wingman, Rizz helps users come up with killer opening lines and responses to potential matches. The company behind it is just one of many startups trying to transform romance through artificial intelligence by optimizing and automating online dating, which is now one of the primary ways people find romantic relationships.
Using dating apps can be a pain. Some people complain about having to wade through countless matches, while others flick indiscriminately; it’s hard to start conversations with strangers; and many users end up viewing apps as a chore rather than an exciting opportunity to connect with someone new.
In addition, the world is becoming more automated: email messages are auto-completed, subscription services are automatically renewed, and any product under the sun is available with a single click. Dating apps, meanwhile, still require a level of manual labor (swiping, messaging, replying) that can become cumbersome and exhausting.
That’s what led Dmitri Mirakyan, 28, a data scientist in New York, to develop YourMove.ai, an AI dating tool that helps users initiate and respond to messages. This summer I got really tired of going through the motions trying to come up with answers on dating apps, he said. So I tried to see if GPT3 can flirt. It turns out it can. A month later I built the first version [of the platform] On Saturday.
Unlike Rizzo and a similar app called Keys, Your Move doesn’t plug into the user’s keyboard yet, and you have to type in messages manually and it will generate a response. However, Mirakyan says a keyboard update is coming soon. Mirakyan said he has always struggled with social interaction and reading social cues, and that he created the app for those like him who need help with seamless digital communication. There’s such a gap these days in what people like me want to communicate and how it manifests, he said. Just trying to be honest or make a point [can mean] we don’t read the room or trip over each other.
Users across the country appreciate the apps ability to generate replies to romantic messages. Mario Pennetti, a 24-year-old from Daytona Beach, Florida who recently graduated with a degree in sports business, uses Your Move to start conversations on Hinge and Bumble.
Before I said, Tell me about yourself, what you do, etc., he said. This helped me explore someone’s personality a little better. I used it today and one of the things it asked was: What is your favorite dinosaur? It’s such a basic thing to ask, but it shows personality.
Miranda Green, a 33-year-old climate reporter from Los Angeles, said Your Move has made dating apps more enjoyable. I think it kept me from having these monotone-sounding conversations and made things really engaging, she said. Green said her conversational skills and ability to ask thoughtful questions were appreciated by several men she matched with. One even invited her when she sent the first AI-generated message. Wow, there’s so much to say about that, her match replied.
I felt like a bit of a fraud, but it also kept me from saying the same thing over and over again, and it obviously worked, she said. I actually had a guy tell me, I was trying to think of a winning thing to say to you and you beat me to it.
Green said she edited some of the suggested messages to show her own personality, but the AI brought out a side of her that she doesn’t usually show. While she said she can often come off as sarcastic and cynical, the emojis and punctuation marks Your Move uses in her responses highlight her playful side, which she says is usually more likely to come out in person.
Taylor Margot, founder of Keys AI, a tool built to help people communicate via text, said a significant portion of Keys users use it for conversations on dating apps. He said he understands the skepticism that comes with new technology, especially when it’s applied to something as personal as dating, but he believes in technology’s ability to foster deeper human connection. It’s about teaching people to be more curious and empathetic, he said. It’s not just about giving people an instant response or openers. I’m really trying to change the way people communicate and build meaningful relationships.
None of the users The Post spoke with reported using AI dating tools for their matches or dates. Margot said she thinks that will change soon.
It’s early in the AI adoption curve, he said. Remember when people didn’t want to share that they met on a dating app? We are now where people are admitting that they use AI to communicate better than they do it themselves. I will call success when people are proud to use the Keys to communicate because it means you are working on yourself to be a better communicator.
Some users don’t just use AI for messaging, they use AI tools to optimize all the features of the dating app. Dax Flame, 31, a content creator in Los Angeles, began an experiment this year to let artificial intelligence control every aspect of his life while he documented the journey on YouTube.
I used Chat GPT to help me with my Tinder bio and message the first matches I got, he said. I asked about the ideal bio. Some aspects didn’t sit well with me, but I found it enjoyable and conversational. I ended up asking for a more customized version and it was a little better. I cut out part of the guitar pick because I don’t play guitar.
Your Move has also recently introduced a feature to help create the perfect dating app profile.
Slate writer Heather Tal Murphy also turned to Chat GPT to arrange meet-ups with a friend on the dating apps Tinder and Bumble. ChatGPT encouraged extra forward tension, which was useful for setting up data quickly, Tal Murphy wrote.
Suman Kanuganti, founder of Personal.ai, a service that lets you create a personalized AI bot that can converse with people just like you, said he believes any future integration of dating AI needs to be tailored to reflect the user’s personality . When you’re doing outlining or using AI in dating situations, it has to be authentic to that particular individual, he said.
This lack of personalization is part of what ultimately caused investor Lloyd to lose faith in the AI dating tool. In her experience using Rizz, the AI generated a lot of strange and often outright fake news.
“You can imagine a world where Tinder and Hinge have all your chats and offer the type of things you’d say in a script that’s authentic to your voice,” he said. But in between, it was hilariously bad, over and over again.
Rizz was founded by four college students, Charis Zhang, 20, Oliver Johansson, 20, Tobias Worledge, 19, all sophomores at the University of California at Berkeley, and Daniel He, 20, a sophomore at the University of Southern California. They were all [computer science] majors who stay in our coding rooms all day. The reason we made this app is because we were experiencing the pain of not quite knowing how to converse with people.
Rizz went viral on TikTok and Twitter shortly after its launch and now has over 130,000 users. Zhang said one of the biggest challenges was trying to decipher input from users who aren’t used to writing proper AI prompts. Maybe that’s why Rizz gave Lloyd such nonsensical answers.
In one case, a woman presented a funny date idea on Hinge with the phrase Steal the Declaration of Independence. The Rizzs AI tool created a response. While I’d like to see the Declaration of Independence, I think it’s a bit over the top.
Another female profile said she knew the best place in town for birria tacos. Rizzs AI got a response, glad to hear you’re enjoying birria tacos in town! It sounds like you’re really taking the time to figure out your dating goals, and that’s great! I’m sure you’ll find the right one for you soon!
Lloyd was confused. The application was actually breaking up with the object of my interest even before the wedding, he said. Some of the answers were so absurd they ended up being funny, but not in the way the app probably intended.
He said he doesn’t plan to use the app again.
I suppose I will continue these conversations manually, Lloyd said.
