App designers seem to be using AI for pretty much every other task, so why shouldn’t it be used to help poor, overburdened, overstressed humanity with dating?
The latest AI concept would emphasize the “artificial” in “artificial intelligence.” An AI avatar would be programmed with a particular individual’s likes, dislikes, interests, pet peeves, and conversational habits, and then go out on the “dating” scene. There your “dating concierge” would interact with other AI bots programmed with a different individual’s characteristics, to determine whether the actual humans they are supposed to artificially depict would be a good match. This “concierge” approach purportedly would allow you avoid going on dozens of awkward, failed dates before you find someone you actually click with.
I’m not sure I would trust AI to accurately represent actual humans on a date, in view of the many stories about generative AI just making things up–but then, humans on dates have been known to occasionally make things up, too, haven’t they? Given the success of matchmaking websites, even more advanced programming could help to further successfully winnow down the field of potential romantic connections.
But at some point, you wonder if this increasing tendency to interpose technology in the personal interactions of people is really a good thing, or whether it is just increasing the sense of isolation and dislocation many people are experiencing. Maybe, just maybe, going through a few bad dates is good for the soul, lets you learn something about yourself and your interpersonal skills, helps you grow and develop as a person, and allows you to gain perspective on what is really important to you in the sense of personal relationships.
When we’ve been out and about over the past few years, we’ve noticed younger people who appear to be on “dates” who are texting away on their smartphones, rather than talking or otherwise paying attention to each other. Who knows? Maybe the future of dating is to sit there and let your avatars do the chatting, so you can keep up with the latest text chain.
Webner House 