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Episode: Dating Apps Suck. A.I. Clones Are Making Them Even Weirder.

Author: The New York Times
Duration: 00:33:30

Episode Shownotes

Fake profiles. Unresponsive texters. Boring conversations. An endless stream of dudes on boats holding the fish they’ve caught. Talk to single people using dating apps, and they are likely to tell you that the experience is awful, but that they have to be there. Dating apps are just how singles

meet one another these days. But what if artificial intelligence could fix modern dating? The Times reporter Eli Tan explored that hypothesis.Eli joined several new dating apps that seek to duplicate a user’s personality via chatbot and let the A.I. clone do the dating. He also received flirting advice from a squadron of A.I. dating coaches. He used that advice on real dates, actually trying to find a connection, to see how the A.I.’s guidance held up.On this episode of Modern Love, Eli tells us what happened when he revealed his use of A.I. to his dates, and whether the technology may actually push us toward more authentic interactions on the apps.How to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York TimesHow to submit a Tiny Love Story Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_00
From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love.

00:00:18 Speaker_01
Are you ready to go?

00:00:18 Speaker_02
I'm ready to go.

00:00:19 Speaker_01
Okay. Today, I'm talking to my colleague, Eli Tan.

00:00:23 Speaker_02
Thanks for having me on.

00:00:24 Speaker_01
Eli is a reporter at The Times. He's 26, he lives in San Francisco, and he's single. That means Eli, like nearly every other single person I know, is on the dating apps.

00:00:35 Speaker_01
And also, just like every other single person I know, Eli thinks the dating apps are awful. He told me every conversation he has feels exactly the same.

00:00:45 Speaker_02
honestly feels like kind of this liminal interaction that you can have, you know, a dozen times a day where it's always, you know, the same type of thing. And no one ever remembers the conversation they have with someone on a dating app.

00:00:58 Speaker_02
You never continue that in the real world. It's kind of this weird, like, performative interaction that you do just to get to the next step.

00:01:07 Speaker_01
Do you feel sort of trapped by these apps? Like, do you feel like it's the only way that you can meet people?

00:01:15 Speaker_02
In a lot of ways I do, yeah. I think I've looked at the data of how many relationships after college start on dating apps nowadays, and it's like the vast majority or something.

00:01:24 Speaker_02
So in a lot of ways it feels like it's something that everyone is doing, but also if it's possible, if we could all just stop going on dating apps, we would. It's so true, yeah.

00:01:34 Speaker_02
It's kind of like how people feel addicted to social media and they say, I wish that nobody was on it because then I wouldn't feel the need to be on it. Completely. And that's how I feel about dating apps.

00:01:45 Speaker_02
I mean, I've spent years on dating apps, and at one point I went and I actually listened to the Hinge founders. He went on podcasts and talked about, well, here are the best ways to make your profile.

00:01:56 Speaker_01
What did he say? He's like, have a photo with friends. I'm like, I know.

00:01:59 Speaker_02
It was very data-driven. He said, okay, this many of the relationships start when you have kind of a fun prompt. And you always want to be responding to prompts. You don't want to be just sending likes out into the ether."

00:02:11 Speaker_02
And I said, okay, I can, if I'm going to be on these apps, I might as well have an approach that would work.

00:02:17 Speaker_02
You know, it's so easy to get fatigued with swiping and talking that I thought, oh, if there's kind of a data-driven way to make this better, like, I should try to do it and see how it works.

00:02:29 Speaker_01
The thing is, that data-driven approach didn't really work for Eli. He optimized his profile, chose the best discussion prompts he could, the best photos, and he was going on more dates, sure, but he couldn't find anyone he really connected with.

00:02:45 Speaker_01
But then Eli learned about a new kind of dating app. Apps that promised to solve his problems using AI. So Eli signed up. He made AI clones of himself that could go on hundreds of virtual dates.

00:02:58 Speaker_01
And he used AI dating coaches to help him flirt, kind of be his wingman. I've never heard of someone dating like this, ever. So that's what we're talking about today. What happened when Eli handed over control of his dating life to AI?

00:03:14 Speaker_01
And whether this technology can solve our dating woes? Stick with us. Okay, Eli, you are here to talk about dating using AI. And I guess I'm curious in the broadest sense, like, why would someone do that? Why introduce AI into our dating life?

00:03:40 Speaker_02
So the problem I think it's trying to solve is that talking to people and matching with people on dating apps can be kind of this tedious and time-consuming thing, and the idea is that if you clone yourself as an AI, and the AI can take care of kind of the

00:03:56 Speaker_02
that initial conversation when you're kind of feeling out if you might like someone or not, then it can save you time. And then if you have so many of these dates, the best one or two are going to be with somebody that's really compatible.

00:04:10 Speaker_02
So in that way, it can save you time as well. In my case, I had my clone. It was going on hundreds of dates a week, which is more than I would ever be able to go on by myself. I can usually, at most, probably manage one date a week.

00:04:23 Speaker_01
I have so many questions about everything you just said. But before we do that, I just want to make something really clear. You weren't just using a demo or something here.

00:04:33 Speaker_01
These were real apps that were made to help people use AI in their dating lives. And you actually did this, making a real profile, using your real name, your real photos, like earnestly trying to meet someone. Were you nervous for that? Not really.

00:04:49 Speaker_02
I think I was more curious. Not at all? Not really, no.

00:04:55 Speaker_02
I mean I thought it might be kind of weird or a little bit dystopian, people tell me, but I think it's, personally I was more just curious and I thought it would be, I thought the whole thing was kind of a humorous thing to try.

00:05:04 Speaker_01
Oh really? Oh my gosh, I'd be really scared. I'd be really nervous. I just feel like, I don't know, like I would not do an experiment with my

00:05:12 Speaker_01
actual love life, and I'm the one that hosts a podcast about love, like I would feel very nervous about doing that. I don't know, maybe that's ego. It's cool to me that you were just purely curious about it.

00:05:22 Speaker_02
Yeah, some of it's probably that dating apps can be so frustrating anyways.

00:05:26 Speaker_01
You're like, let's just blow it up and see.

00:05:27 Speaker_02
Yeah, why not? How much worse could things get? I'll make a clone of myself and date that way. Why not?

00:05:32 Speaker_01
Why not? Okay, I want to get into the specifics here. When it comes to the cloning apps, what apps were you using and what did they do?

00:05:41 Speaker_02
So for the cloning apps, I used one app called Ice, which let me create a clone that could then talk to real people. And then I used another app called Volar, which let me create clones that talk to other people's clones.

00:05:54 Speaker_01
Kind of break that down for me. You're trying to duplicate your personality in AI clone. What does that look like? How are you training this computer model?

00:06:04 Speaker_02
Well, each of these clones had their own chatbot that would essentially be like my brain. So, I would basically be texting these clones like I would a close friend so that they could pick up on, you know, my cadence... Your mannerisms.

00:06:18 Speaker_02
...and the things that I'm interested in. The clones would kind of ask me what I'm looking for in a relationship and try to feel that out so that when it went out there itself into the dating pool, it could act just like me.

00:06:28 Speaker_01
And can I ask you, like, what types of questions, the specific questions it was asking you and how you responded?

00:06:35 Speaker_02
Yeah, it would be kind of the typical dating interest. So like, oh, what do you like to do on the weekends? What are you looking for in a relationship? What are your love languages?

00:06:44 Speaker_01
And what did you say you were looking for?

00:06:45 Speaker_02
What type of relationships you've been in? For the purposes of this, yeah, I trained it. I said, yeah, I'm looking for a serious relationship. I'm looking for, you know, a serious partner.

00:06:54 Speaker_01
And what did you say you like to do on the weekends?

00:06:56 Speaker_02
I'm just trying to get a sense of, I guess, you, but really your clone. So that's where it got difficult because it can be difficult to... you know, put your personality into text like that.

00:07:06 Speaker_01
Totally. It's like hang out with friends and chat to them.

00:07:09 Speaker_02
And then at the end of the day, we're all kind of similar because everyone likes to go out and eat at restaurants and hang out at parks.

00:07:14 Speaker_01
And like work out. Yeah.

00:07:15 Speaker_02
And then there was one particular thing I had a really difficult time, which was trying to explain to my clone that I like the outdoors and I like nature, but I don't actually really go in the outdoors much. I don't really go hiking.

00:07:27 Speaker_02
So my clone would always tell people that You know, oh I went on this hike this weekend and I did this and I had to explain to it like no I I say I like those things, but I've never actually owned hiking shoes.

00:07:38 Speaker_02
I I don't know any of these places you're mentioning because I just more kind of like the idea of being an outdoorsy person You know those type of things that were And I just got back from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and you're like we need to roll that back.

00:07:50 Speaker_01
I walked up a hill. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I want to clarify like do these clones hook into like existing dating apps that we have like hinge and tinder Are they sort of on separate?

00:08:00 Speaker_02
So, the clone apps are separate apps. Okay. From what I understand, a lot of these really popular dating apps are working on creating their own clones, but that's all internal for now.

00:08:10 Speaker_01
Okay.

00:08:10 Speaker_02
So, I used basically smaller apps that are, yeah, they're their own thing. So, you log on to them and you have your own profile.

00:08:16 Speaker_01
Okay.

00:08:16 Speaker_02
They don't connect to places like Hinge or Tinder.

00:08:19 Speaker_01
You log on to them, you train the clone, like you said, you upload the photos and you're texting it and telling it about what you enjoy and it's picking up on your cadence and so you train up this clone that then goes out and has conversations with who?

00:08:34 Speaker_02
So that clones would have conversations with other people's clones. So at the end of every day I would get a notification that said your clone went on a hundred dates today, check and see how they went.

00:08:43 Speaker_02
And I could go through and I could look at these long conversations that these two clones would have together. And if I wanted to, I could say, okay, I think this worked out really well. I think there's something here I can manually kind of enter.

00:08:55 Speaker_02
And then our clones become humans and we talk that way.

00:08:59 Speaker_01
So you'd, like, open up your phone after just, like, doing other things during the day, doing your job, hanging out with, like, real people in the world, and you'd log onto this app and it would say, your clone has gone on 100 dates and you'd functionally read transcripts of these dates?

00:09:16 Speaker_02
Yeah, so I would get a notification that my clone had gone on 10 or 20 or 30 dates and then I could go in and I could read back through those transcripts and see how they went.

00:09:26 Speaker_01
Did you ever log into your app and see them just chatting it up and feel like you were intruding?

00:09:30 Speaker_02
Yeah, if you were on the app, you could click on a conversation and see the messages go back and forth every few seconds if you wanted to.

00:09:37 Speaker_02
Then I could say, oh, this person likes doing so-and-so, and they're like, oh, they like going to this place, I do too. But then the weird thing was seeing, you know,

00:09:47 Speaker_02
It didn't happen often, but like moments of intimacy between two clones where it really didn't feel like it was me and another person. It felt like my clone was kind of its own thing.

00:09:56 Speaker_02
And what I found was that my clone really did have a personality of its own, even if I tried to train it on certain things, you know, it would enjoy going to its own restaurants and coffee shops and stuff like that.

00:10:05 Speaker_01
Can you give me an example of like a moment of intimacy that you saw between your clone and someone else's clone, if you can remember?

00:10:13 Speaker_02
It would be very brief, but it would be like after a long conversation, my clone would say something like, I really like you. And then the other clone would say, I like you too. Or something like that.

00:10:22 Speaker_01
Okay, stop. Something very small. How did real Eli feel reading clone Eli and clone Lisa? You know, having this moment of like, I like you, I like you. What did that feel like to you, reading the transcript of this clone conversation?

00:10:34 Speaker_02
It felt totally bizarre and it felt like something that I was not involved in and it didn't make me want to jump in and take over. It felt like, oh no, this is kind of its own thing happening. Interesting. Yeah, this is not... I didn't do this.

00:10:48 Speaker_02
This is... Well, that was going to be my question.

00:10:49 Speaker_01
It's like in reading a transcript of a clone date that ostensibly went really well, they're hitting it off, you know, clone sparks are flying. Are you then like, man, I want to get in this app and talk to real Lisa?

00:10:59 Speaker_01
It sounds like your answer to that is no, it's almost so kind of uncanny valley or so. It feels kind of like separate from you and it doesn't make you actually want to get in touch with the real person behind that clone.

00:11:12 Speaker_02
Yeah, I would say that's definitely true. Huh.

00:11:14 Speaker_01
I don't know if that were me and I was like carrying my phone around all day and I knew that inside my phone my clone was going on hundreds of dates.

00:11:23 Speaker_02
It felt like this secret life I had in my phone where I would look at the notification and look around and I would say no one even knows that my clone just went on a hundred dates. No one even knows that my clone's a player.

00:11:36 Speaker_02
My clone's on its way to date all of San Francisco in one month.

00:11:39 Speaker_01
Okay. How is that actually time-saving, though? Like, you open up the app and it's like, your clone went on a hundred dates. Do they rank them in terms of, like, compatibility, or do you need to read through basically a hundred transcripts of dates?

00:11:51 Speaker_01
Because that does not feel quicker to me.

00:11:53 Speaker_02
Yeah, so this app did not rank them, but I've talked to people that work for dating app companies that say, oh, well, we can then manually run a program that will find the best three conversations.

00:12:05 Speaker_02
I mean, there's an episode of Black Mirror that's like this, where it's like a futuristic dating app where people's clones are kind of trapped in this universe and they have to they have to find each other and they have to find love.

00:12:17 Speaker_02
And I actually talked to a few different founders that told me straight up, they said, yeah, I was inspired by that episode to create this app. And I thought, oh, wow, that's interesting, because that was like a dystopia.

00:12:28 Speaker_02
That wasn't like a happy story.

00:12:29 Speaker_01
I would 100% say that. When we come back, Eli and I do a dramatic reading of one of his clones' conversations. You will not want to miss it.

00:13:06 Speaker_01
Okay, so you just told us about this way that clones can go on dates with other clones, but there's another use of sort of clones, AI clones in dating, correct?

00:13:14 Speaker_02
Yes, the other way that you can use clones and that I tried out was that you could go into another app and you could look through kind of a list of clones and people and you could pick which one you wanted to talk to and then I myself could have a conversation with the clone.

00:13:32 Speaker_01
So it's you yourself, you, human, real Eli.

00:13:36 Speaker_02
Yes, human Eli could go into the app and it could say, okay, look at a hundred of these profiles of these people. Which one do I think I would be interested in or do I think is attractive?

00:13:47 Speaker_02
And I can click on that person and I can just immediately enter a conversation with that person's clone.

00:13:53 Speaker_01
So what is the problem solve there? What is the, what's the purpose?

00:13:59 Speaker_02
It's not totally clear.

00:14:00 Speaker_02
I think the purpose would be that on the other end, you can see not only that somebody is interested in talking with you, but then you have this basically this, you know, preemptive conversation and you can see, okay, what are they like?

00:14:12 Speaker_02
So instead of having this pile of swipes or likes on a dating app that is kind of two-dimensional, you now have this three-dimensional thing where you can see how you might have gotten along with this person or how your clone managed the conversation.

00:14:26 Speaker_02
You get to see a little bit more about them than you would just with photos.

00:14:29 Speaker_01
Yeah, there's more evidence almost for potentially actually engaging with this human person as another human person.

00:14:34 Speaker_01
OK, so there's this conversation that you include in the article you wrote about this experiment, Eli, where your clone is interacting with a real person. So it's this kind of conversational dynamic we're talking about.

00:14:47 Speaker_01
And I want to do something that will be fun, okay? I want to have us act out that conversation, because I really think the listeners need to hear it in its full glory. So, your clone is talking to this real person named Rachel.

00:15:01 Speaker_01
You are gonna be your clone. I'm gonna be Rachel. And we're gonna go for it. I need to get into character for a second. I'm gonna embody Rachel, and I need you to put yourself in the space of being your clone. You feel ready?

00:15:14 Speaker_02
I'm ready.

00:15:15 Speaker_01
Okay. Go for it.

00:15:17 Speaker_02
If you could only eat one snack for the rest of your life, what would it be?

00:15:22 Speaker_01
Mozzarella sticks.

00:15:25 Speaker_02
Crunchy cheesy bliss! What is it about mozzarella sticks that make your heart skip a beat?

00:15:31 Speaker_01
LOL. It gives pizza vibes, but with much more cheese. What's your go-to?

00:15:36 Speaker_02
Expensive cheese and bread all the way. There's something about the richness that makes my heart sing. What's your fave pizza topic, by the way?

00:15:43 Speaker_01
Pepperoni. And what do you mean by expensive cheese? Pepperoni perfection. Okay. Okay. Okay. When you read this transcript again between your clone and this real person, Rachel, what's your immediate thought?

00:15:58 Speaker_02
Oh, I was cringing. I thought this was... I mean, I remember when I first... read this conversation in the app because it works okay when I'm messaging other people because I'm in control.

00:16:08 Speaker_01
Of course.

00:16:08 Speaker_02
But the horrifying part is then seeing all the things my clone was saying to people and just thinking, oh my gosh, why would it say this? Crunchy, cheesy bliss. Followed by the pepperoni perfection. It was like too many catchphrases.

00:16:19 Speaker_02
Like, it was just too much.

00:16:21 Speaker_01
It's really... It's bad. I mean, it's really bad. Are you like, what have I wrought? Like, what else are you thinking?

00:16:30 Speaker_02
Yeah, typically the reaction would be, okay, I need to fix something. Because you can train the clone when it makes mistakes and you can kind of do pep talks with it and say, okay, we can't talk like this anymore.

00:16:40 Speaker_02
We can't be doing these catchphrases like, you tell the clone, all right, no more catchphrases. Or you don't need to talk so much about cheese and food and it's okay to kind of do other stuff.

00:16:52 Speaker_02
But my reaction, it was like, yeah, it was like wanting to discipline this clone for, you know, what if this person was someone that I really liked? And it was like, well, now let's botch this opportunity. And I was just maybe done it better myself.

00:17:02 Speaker_01
I was gonna say, like, did that thought occur to you? Like, what if Rachel

00:17:07 Speaker_01
was a potential match and then she heard pepperoni perfection from your clone and she was like I'm out like I don't know that's what I meant by like were you nervous to do this yeah that was the I think the part that took courage was to say okay I'm just gonna do it even if it might

00:17:22 Speaker_02
kind of torpedo this interaction, or if I think I could actually kind of salvage this, like, I'm just gonna see if the clone can do it and can turn it around. Interesting. And in that way, it felt like it was a little bit out of my control.

00:17:33 Speaker_02
But with something like this, Rachel knew that she was talking to my clone.

00:17:37 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:17:37 Speaker_02
So she probably had an understanding that, okay, this is not exactly how Eli talks, or hopefully not.

00:17:43 Speaker_01
I want to flip the script a bit. So that was your clone talking to a real person. When you were the real person talking to a clone, what was that like for you?

00:17:54 Speaker_02
Yeah, that wasn't great either. I mean, what I ended up finding was that You know, most people have the same kind of four or five interests, and it can be kind of hard to animate that or to create any sense of chemistry.

00:18:09 Speaker_02
And a lot of the times, you know, the things that make us who we are, you know, they're just very difficult to kind of put down or to train a clone on.

00:18:17 Speaker_02
And what it helped me with was seeing what a person's broad interests were and the things that they like to do and more of that biographical detail. But it didn't help me at all. realize if I had any chemistry with that person.

00:18:32 Speaker_02
So in that way, the clones have kind of an impossible task where even if they could perfectly replicate flirting and the way we talk to each other, it would only go so far, I think.

00:18:42 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:18:44 Speaker_01
I wonder if this experiment taught you anything about the nature of conversations on dating apps because listening to you talk, I'm wondering like whether AI is involved or not, how is talking about our favorite foods supposed to help us build a connection with someone else?

00:19:03 Speaker_01
Like maybe there's just a problem with dating on an app, period, is that we're talking about the wrong stuff.

00:19:10 Speaker_02
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that because I think when you go on an actual date, within the first few minutes, no matter what you're really talking about, you can kind of get a sense if you like that person or not.

00:19:22 Speaker_02
And for whatever reason, when you do that virtually over text, it's just not the same, even if you're talking about something that might be more realistic. There's something about the in-person chemistry that's not coming through.

00:19:37 Speaker_01
When we come back, Eli tells us about a more promising way to use AI in dating. So Eli, we talked about these AI clones of yourself that you made to go on all these virtual dates for you.

00:20:07 Speaker_01
But I know you also used an app called Amori that had these AI dating coaches. And these seem to me like something I would actually use. I could not see myself cloning myself.

00:20:20 Speaker_01
I honestly really could see myself popping over to my AI dating coach and being like, oh, what do you think about this situation? Or was the text I just sent totally freaking weird? Or how should I respond to this? Tell me about those dating coaches.

00:20:33 Speaker_01
Are they kind of what I imagine them to be?

00:20:35 Speaker_02
Yes, the dating coaches in one of the apps, they all had different personalities. So one of them was kind of a wise aunt figure. Oh my God. And one of them was like the bro best friend.

00:20:47 Speaker_02
And another one was Christy, the blunt bestie who's, she was the most popular on the app I was told by its founder because she was so sassy and she would tell it like it is, you know.

00:20:56 Speaker_02
So yeah, I would, you know, I could upload conversations that I'd have with somebody off of dating apps, whether it was, you know, texting on iMessages or whatever it was.

00:21:06 Speaker_02
And the dating coach could kind of look at all the messages and I could ask it questions about how the conversation was going. Like what kinds of questions? So I would ask, you know, do you think this person's interested in me romantically?

00:21:20 Speaker_02
Or do you think it's more of a friend situation? And Christy would say, oh, I'm kind of getting buddy... Christy the blunt bestie? Christy the blunt bestie would say, oh, I'm kind of getting buddy vibes from this one. Oh, God.

00:21:31 Speaker_02
You know, I think this one might, you know, maybe we can spice it up, but right now I think this is more just kind of a platonic thing.

00:21:37 Speaker_01
That's so blunt, bestie vibes. When you got, is this an actual thing that you uploaded to Christine? She actually said that to you? Yes, yes. Okay. And what was your emotional reaction when

00:21:47 Speaker_02
One of the situations I was like, I don't know, Christy. I mean, I think there might be something there.

00:21:54 Speaker_02
So in one of the cases, I switched over to Ethan, the wingman, which is the other one of the other coaches that I would use because he's more of my bro. And, you know, he's someone, he's gonna, he's always gonna hype me up.

00:22:06 Speaker_02
Like, he's never looking to shut things down. He's always looking kind of for solutions. Yeah.

00:22:11 Speaker_01
So I asked him. You uploaded the same conversation.

00:22:12 Speaker_02
Yeah, I uploaded the same conversation. And he was much more optimistic. I mean, he picked out specific things that she sent or said that he said, you know, that this could be really good.

00:22:21 Speaker_01
And who did you decide to believe, Christy Blunt-Bestie or Ethan, your bro?

00:22:26 Speaker_02
In that case, I stuck with Ethan, my bro. But in a lot of the cases, it's true. Christy, her feedback actually was pretty good.

00:22:33 Speaker_01
Can I just follow up? Like, so, Ethan said, like, go for a man. Like, there could be something here. Like, there could be a spark. And so, did you proceed with the conversation in that way? Like, did you try to see if there was something romantic there?

00:22:46 Speaker_01
And was Ethan right, basically, is my question?

00:22:48 Speaker_02
I think in that case, Ethan was probably more right. But I think it really more comes down to just looking at these conversations with like optimism or being really cautious and safe. Which is kind of what the two coaches represented.

00:23:01 Speaker_02
More than like actually picking up on the specific things.

00:23:05 Speaker_01
Can I ask you, did anything come of that relationship? Like, did you guys end up going on a date date?

00:23:12 Speaker_02
Uh, no. Not with that person. Okay, but Ethan was right that there was something a little more there, but it just didn't... I think so, personally. My read was closer to how Ethan saw it than Christy. Copy that.

00:23:22 Speaker_01
All right, gotcha. When you were asking these dating coaches to, like, generate a response to something someone had said to you on an app,

00:23:32 Speaker_01
Would you disclose to like the people on Hinge or whatever who were applying, would you tell them, you'd send them a message and then would you say like, and by the way that was generated using AI, like would you disclose that to them?

00:23:42 Speaker_02
I would not disclose it to them in the moment. But if I would go on a date with that person, I would tell them and I would see what they thought about it. Because that felt more honest than just living kind of this. What do people think?

00:23:55 Speaker_01
How did you say it? And by the way, that cool line that drew you in, that was from The Rizzler.

00:24:01 Speaker_02
Well, I would always kind of bring it up. I would try to do like a roundabout way to bring it up. I'm actually, because they say, oh, you're a journalist. What are you writing about?

00:24:08 Speaker_02
I'm actually writing about the stating app story where you can use AI to generate messages. And they're like, that's so weird. I would totally know if someone used that. And I'm like, well,

00:24:18 Speaker_02
Could you tell that I actually used it for like these few messages?" And they would be like, oh, no, I didn't. I didn't know. Or they would say, oh, yeah, now that you say that, I can kind of tell.

00:24:27 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:24:27 Speaker_02
But most people were pretty put off by the idea. I never met someone that was like, I'm going to try that myself. That never happened.

00:24:34 Speaker_01
Would you feel, I don't know, a bit of a weight lifted off your shoulders when you finally disclosed that like you were using AI? Did it feel like you were admitting something?

00:24:44 Speaker_02
A little bit, yeah. I wondered how it would reflect on me if it would make me seem either kind of dishonest or kind of like I wasn't super genuine because I was using this.

00:24:56 Speaker_02
I mean, in one case, this person that I've actually been on a few dates with, the AI actually came up with this kind of like inside joke that is still kind of a thing, and I have not disclosed that this actually wasn't me that created this.

00:25:08 Speaker_02
Well, Eli, are you going to or it's too late now? I mean, I guess you'll hear this episode and then know that. But something like that, I just felt like, oh, this is weird.

00:25:16 Speaker_02
Is this something that's coming for me or is this this kind of... Can we know what the joke is or is that... Yeah, I have some prompt on my Hinge profile about like, it's like, I know the best. These are all so silly already.

00:25:27 Speaker_02
It's like, I know the best place in town for and then you fill it in. I guess it's something like dim sum. Nice. And she'd asked about it and I had been using this product, kind of like Chad GPT, it's called Clod.

00:25:39 Speaker_02
And Clod was actually a little bit funnier. It was like a little bit better with the banter and its whole thing was that it like wasn't telling her what the place was. It was just trying to do other stuff.

00:25:48 Speaker_01
Yeah, it was like diverting.

00:25:49 Speaker_02
Maybe if I trust you more, I can tell you. Funny. So that's kind of continued on. I've still never told this person about it. this dim sum place.

00:25:59 Speaker_01
Wait, I have to ask, are you still seeing this person?

00:26:01 Speaker_02
I am, yeah. We're getting dim sum on this week, actually. And I'm probably going to have to confess while I'm there that the AI came up with that dim sum restaurant.

00:26:11 Speaker_01
You know what's striking me about this sort of usage of AI in dating, like the showing of the conversations and asking for advice, I do that literally all of the time with just my friends, right?

00:26:27 Speaker_01
Like I've been talking to this person on and off and I am basically sending screenshots of

00:26:34 Speaker_01
our entire conversation from start to finish sending off you know like 65 images to the friend group chat asking for feedback like this is what I'm doing with my friends and it strikes me like AI is kind of doing that but worse

00:26:52 Speaker_02
Possibly, yeah. I think one alternative way to look at that would be, you know, you can't always berate your friends a dozen times a day, sending them screenshots about conversations. My friends love it. Your friends love it?

00:27:05 Speaker_02
Yeah, my friends would probably, I think, get tired eventually if I was like, can you come up with another opener? Okay, what about another? What about another? So I think if you're trying to use this stuff in mass, the AI might make sense.

00:27:15 Speaker_02
I actually, at one point, I have a best friend who is very similar to Ethan the Wingman, kind of in my life. And at one point I was like, oh, I'll send both of them screenshots and kind of see the difference.

00:27:27 Speaker_01
Interesting. You put this to the test, like the question I just asked.

00:27:29 Speaker_02
I put it to the test. Yeah, my friend in real life's name is Ryan. But Ryan is not very good at dating apps. So I was like, well, I don't know if any of this advice is going to be really great.

00:27:39 Speaker_02
Like, I don't have somebody that is like nails with the advice in real life about this stuff. I don't have a group chat that can actually give me good stuff.

00:27:47 Speaker_01
You've got to get yourself a blunt bestie, babe.

00:27:48 Speaker_02
I know, I do. I really need that in real life. That might help me out.

00:27:53 Speaker_01
Are you still using the AI, like the story's published, like it came out. Are you still using these AI tools post-publish or did you like delete the clone apps from your phone the second that you were done with this story?

00:28:03 Speaker_02
I have not been using the clone apps. A couple of them actually shut down after I finished reporting this because they couldn't raise more money or they didn't have very much success.

00:28:11 Speaker_01
Cheesy crunchy bonus was just not making a lot of money.

00:28:13 Speaker_02
That was a killer for them. Something I still do, I still ask. you know, this chat GPT-like service sometimes to recommend me date spots or things we can do or activities we can do in certain neighborhoods.

00:28:26 Speaker_02
Because at this point, the service actually knows me pretty well. We've talked enough about how dates go, and a lot of the times it will actually give me really good recommendations.

00:28:34 Speaker_01
Well, help me make something of it right now, like it sounds like in some way the sort of clone version of you or the AI, you know, tools have kind of embedded themselves into the way that you're using these dating apps.

00:28:46 Speaker_01
Like, do you think this experience of reporting the story has fundamentally changed the way you're approaching dating in your life and will approach dating, you know, for the future? I think so.

00:28:56 Speaker_02
I think it has. And I think it's changed the way that I kind of see my profile and when you kind of animate some of the ways, you know, that you describe yourself on apps.

00:29:07 Speaker_02
or put them into conversations like, oh, this actually comes off differently than maybe I thought it did. Maybe I will actually not market myself as much of an outdoorsy person because I'm not or something like that.

00:29:17 Speaker_01
Yeah, yeah. After all of this, what is your verdict. Is AI going to fix our dating woes, our app fatigue?

00:29:28 Speaker_02
I think my takeaway is less about can AI solve my dating life and more do I want it to? I think there are some things that

00:29:39 Speaker_02
Yeah, maybe AI can do this, but do I want to be automating out my relationships and my dating in these moments of, you know, first meeting somebody and having meet-cutes? Like, why would I want a robot to do that?

00:29:50 Speaker_02
I think that's just something that I kind of want to do myself, and I got so many emails from readers that said, dude, just go, you know, older readers that were 60, 70 years

00:30:01 Speaker_02
They were saying, you know, back in my day, I would just go out and I would I would just smile at women on the street. And if they smiled back, I would go up and talk to them. You should try that.

00:30:11 Speaker_02
And part of me is thinking like, OK, you know, Glenn, it's not 1970 and times have changed. It's actually not OK to just go out and smile at a bunch of women. We actually have to be more creative. And just generally, I think the

00:30:25 Speaker_02
the dating advice of kind of older generations. It's just so different than kind of the experience.

00:30:30 Speaker_02
Like if I talk to my parents about dating, they would give me some advice like, oh, you know, when you're least expecting it, that's when you'll find love. And meanwhile, I'm like,

00:30:40 Speaker_02
trying to get my clone to date as many people in San Francisco as I can. You know, I'm like, my clone's not really picking up my sense of humor that well.

00:30:47 Speaker_01
It's like a totally separated... Your mom's like, join a volleyball league. Yeah, my mom, I was talking to her on the phone yesterday. She's like, maybe you should pick up a hobby that men also do, like woodworking.

00:30:55 Speaker_01
I was like, I'm not talking to you about this. Yeah. I mean, I guess I to that point, like, OK, so it sounds like you are kind of committed or at least are seeking these kind of moments of serendipity and, you know, connection in real life.

00:31:10 Speaker_01
Are there ways that you are trying to cultivate that, you know, off the apps these days?

00:31:17 Speaker_02
I am, but it's hard. Well, one, you can't schedule serendipity. It's kind of counteractive.

00:31:22 Speaker_02
But yeah, I've tried like, I think there's like this whole kind of network now of these dating events that you can do because people are so frustrated with apps, they try to get people kind of in person.

00:31:34 Speaker_02
And I mean, one of them, I tried like one of these singles running clubs once. Oh, brother. And I mean, I've realized this as we started running, I'm like, I'm not a runner. It's like a five mile run. I'm like huffing and puffing.

00:31:48 Speaker_02
I'm like, I'm just making the good runners look even better because I'm not even trying to talk to someone. I'm just trying to get through this run.

00:31:53 Speaker_00
Right, right, right.

00:31:54 Speaker_02
So things like that where it's like.

00:31:56 Speaker_02
Okay, you really have to be extroverted, I think, to be going to some of these in-person events and meeting people through friends of friends or whoever it is is still probably, for me, the ideal way, but it's just not something that you can kind of plan ahead or try to do a bunch of.

00:32:12 Speaker_02
It's something that just happens naturally, I would say.

00:32:17 Speaker_01
Eli Tan, what a fun conversation. Thank you for joining me on the show today.

00:32:20 Speaker_02
Thanks so much for having me.

00:32:21 Speaker_01
What fun, what crunchy cheesy bliss. We're like so grateful that you did this with us.

00:32:25 Speaker_02
No, thank you guys for having me on. This was awesome.

00:32:26 Speaker_01
Oh my God, so much fun. Come back, keep reporting on dating, and then we can keep having you on as a guest.

00:32:32 Speaker_02
Okay, that'd be great.

00:32:38 Speaker_01
This episode of Modern Love was produced by Davis Land and Emily Lang. It was edited by our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Josa. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell.

00:32:50 Speaker_01
Original music by Amin Sahota, Carol Saburo, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Studio support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman.

00:33:03 Speaker_01
Special thanks to Mahima Treblani, Nelga Loegli, Jeffrey Miranda, and Paula Schumann. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects.

00:33:14 Speaker_01
If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.