AI Is Making Dating Even Harder

MUCH HAS BEEN made of the “loneliness epidemic.” During the summer of 2023, surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy laid out a framework for Americans to alleviate loneliness and isolation due to the dire health risks it poses. Per a report by the Department of Health & Human Services, these include “a 29 percent increased risk of heart disease, a 32 percent increased risk of stroke, and a 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia for older adults.” Lacking social connection also increases the risk of premature death by more than 60 percent.

In the same year, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a “global public health concern.” Is it any wonder, then, that modern dating is dismal, especially via dating apps?

Typically, it takes Americans about 4,000 swipes over an eight month period to find a partner on a dating app, according to one 2023 survey. Pew Research Center found that 46 percent of dating app users said their experiences on dating apps have been overall very or somewhat negative.

This rapid decline in human connection at a national level parallels an unrelenting—and largely uninformed—enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. “With any age of technology, we are posed with a level of benefits and then certain liabilities and spaces that we can’t really analyze and understand until they’re happening in real time,” said Dr. Akua Boateng, a licensed psychotherapist.

While there are some benefits to AI beyond making machine-made portraits of yourself with six fingers, there also appears to be a widespread, undeniably misguided desire to use AI for innately human things like simply looking for someone to make out with, or perhaps even find love.

Want to start and maintain conversations on a dating app? There’s an AI for that. Need to know if you should get back with your ex? There’s an AI for that. Nervous to do something very delicate like fire someone or write a wedding speech? ChatGPT can technically do it for you. Apple’s new commercials suggest using an AI to read your emails. Everything you Google now comes with an AI summary. A new dating app called Skip even skips the entire vetting and getting to know each other process, which is not only dumb but unsafe.

“The challenge with AI is that no matter how specialized we get in artificial intelligence, there is an intangible thing that happens between human to human that can not be replicated,” Boateng said. “The emotional intelligence and knowledge of self that we get from having to navigate conflict or negotiate love and friendship, these things that we need to learn and develop over time, can’t be done artificially.”

The head tilted, glance down and back up of someone checking you out. The feeling of walking very close to the person you’ve yet to hold hands with but want to. A detailed text with a thoughtful date planned. When someone remembers what you were wearing the day they met you. An AI isn’t going to get you there.

With data and tech, the obvious push is to make things more efficient. Boateng compares this flight to AI for dating social cues to the appeal of other time-savers like SparkNotes. “As soon as you find out the shortcut, sometimes there’s a tendency to want to rely on it, because it has some inherent benefits,” she said.

Sure, having an AI generate conversation starters for swiping through thousands of dating app bios might save time, but at what cost? Users may believe they’re able escape the feelings of failure, challenging conversations, rejection, or even the highs—and lows—of being love-bombed in the name of ease and efficiency, but it’ll be to their detriment long term. (And frankly, it wouldn’t kill us to stop treating dating like a numbers game.) It’s impossible to perpetually avoid these interactions, and the longer someone puts them off, the harder they’ll be to learn later in life. We’re the sum total of our experiences. Without them, you have little for yourself and less to offer in a relationship.

There is an argument circulating online that AI-generated art is the next frontier of creativity; that the ability to input a series of prompts to a computer removes barriers and allows anybody to become a painter or novelist. The counter-argument, of course, is that the final result is not what makes you an artist, but the act itself. It is in the doing that you hone your craft and find your voice. It is exactly the same in the realm of dating.

“When we’re miseducated, we miss out on a color, the texture, the nuance that makes life really beautiful which really comes from diversity and difference,” Boateng explained. “It’s a myopic view of the world.” It seems like we’re getting further from closeness and intimacy by way of these aids, and it’s manifesting very clearly in the decline of dating apps, with nearly half of users dissatisfied with the endless tap-and-swipe approach to finding love. Putting more tech between two people is not at all enhancing or improving the experience of getting to know one another.

With AI becoming an increasingly everyday part of our lives, education will be vital. Not only around safety and privacy in its business applications, but how it’s being used on a personal level to supplement human connection and romance, especially as male loneliness in particular has been linked to a rise in violent extremism.

In the name of efficiency and getting from point A to point B faster, we’re neglecting a key part of what it takes to build a relationship: knowing ourselves enough to get to know others. “My fear is that we become more and more emotionally malnourished and underdeveloped,” Dr Boateng said.

Murthy’s proposed framework to combat loneliness aimed to strengthen the country’s social infrastructure with programs that support physical representations of community, like libraries and parks. It would also enact pro-connection public policies like accessible public transportation and paid family leave, and reform digital environments.

In other words, doctors recommend a diet of face-to-face, real-world contact, where spontaneity and unexpected bonds can flourish.

Dating is supposed to be fun. If you’re finding that it isn’t, then maybe there are things within yourself worth working on. Or maybe you need to try a new approach that an AI can’t do for you. We should consider the benefits of connecting more with ourselves and improving our friendships with others before learning how to date from an algorithm whose calculations are never going to replicate how good it feels to find a voice note from your crush in your messages.

AI isn’t going anywhere. But remember: it’s meant to read data, not help you find a date.