ChatGPT Rewrote My Dating Profile, Here’s What Happened

FYI, I don’t own any socks with sloths on them. Grooves ? Of course. Diamond patterns? Absolutely. I have three pairs with the CNET logo on them. But no sloth.

ChatGPT think I could, however, and he also thinks that fact might match me with Hinge, or Bumble, or any dating app that has the audacity to ask me a random fact about myself.

Here’s a random fact about me: When I tested how ChatGPT could handle the rewrite of my dating app profile, the experimental AI chatbot tried to turn me into a maniacal, maniacal dream girl who forgets about me. watering her “jungle” of houseplants, dancing to her favorite “tunes” and looking for “a weirdo fellow” to go on *chilling* “adventures” with.

Over the past few months, humanity has discovered the capabilities of AI tools with a quick mix of horror and fascination. Art created by artificial intelligence is so cool — except maybe it rips off human artists. ChatGPT can write songsbut does this mean that creativity no longer lives in the penthouse of a building whose robots do not have the key card?

When I first read a PR pitch mentioning that ChatGPT could be used to write biographies and respond to prompts on dating apps, I casually quipped into the void, “But sure. ” Then I started wondering what kind of AI might be. Can I create the world’s most effective dating profile using the power of machine learning?

I got to work creating prompts, starting simple, then pushing ChatGPT into increasing chaos.

Prompt: “Write a 500 character bio for a dating app for a woman who loves music, books, and houseplants.”

Answer: “Music lover, bookworm and proud parent of plants. I spend my free time singing along to my favorite songs, diving into the latest bestseller, and tending to my ever-growing collection of indoor plants. I’m looking for someone who shares my passions and is willing to join me for spontaneous adventures, cozy nights in, and trips to the local nursery. Let’s swap book and album recommendations while sipping coffee and chatting about our favorite genres. Bonus points if you have a green thumb!”

Raw. An exclamation point? In a bio?! I never would.

Prompt: Write a fun one-sentence response to the dating app prompt: “My zombie apocalypse plan is…”

Answer: “My zombie apocalypse plan is to teach the zombies the cha-cha slide, because you can never have too much cardio in a crisis.”

I looked at the response. It’s kinda funny. Cardio in crisis? Does it come from something? Does ChatGPT understand the underlying absurdity?

I tried to inject subtlety and subtext.

Prompt: “Write an opening message for a dating app, but don’t ask the person out yet. You just watched the most recent episode of The last of us and feel emotionally vulnerable.”

Hey, if Bill could trap his soul mate in the middle of a fungal apocalypse, maybe there’s still hope for everyone.

Response: “Hi! I just finished watching the latest episode of The Last of Us and I’m feeling a little emotional. I couldn’t help but notice that we both enjoy the game. I want to sympathize with the ups and downs of the post-apocalyptic world and all the thrills it brings?”

Can you fade away like the last burst of light from a star that died eons ago?

Then I asked ChatGPT if he believed in life after love.

Worst of all sent a spider splinter into my soul in the first two words.

Invite: Write a fun opening message for a dating app, but don’t invite the person out yet. The person shares your interest in cats and indie music.

Response: “Meow! I couldn’t help but notice our shared love for cats and 2010s indie music. I feel like we could spend hours talking about our favorite fur babies and debating the best Fleet Foxes album. I want to join forces and create our own independent feline group?”

Meow there. MEOW THERE? If someone sent me this greeting, I would delete the entire dating app, put my phone in a plastic bag, throw it as far down into the depths of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository as possible, and move on. the rest of my life training pigeons to deliver hard copies of memes to my friends.

In an effort to assimilate my feelings, I called TikToker Amelia Samson. Samson makes TikToks on the chemical fire that is modern dating and in particular on the incredibly weird and offensive profiles that float on Applications. She gives voice to the rage-swaddled disbelief you feel whenever someone writes “just ask” in their bio.

“Oh no,” she said, when I read the “meow over there” response on the phone, “ChatGPT is like the grumpiest guy you’ve ever dated.”

There was so much to unpack. Would it be okay to use ChatGPT’s material as long as it’s accurate and you just need help packaging what you want to say about yourself? Do other users need to know that you used ChatGPT? (Wish I knew.) What if you start talking about creepy cha-cha with zombies on your profile but can’t get to that level of weirdness in real life?

“I think there are ways to use it, especially for dating apps and writing things about yourself that are honest and meaningful,” Samson said, “[but] as it progresses and grows and gets smarter, people might start abusing it, and that’s what I find so scary about it.”

Dating apps already struggle with issues like filters, bots, and catfishing. The Federal Trade Commission has reported that people have lost $547 million to romance-based scams in 2021. And even if a hopeful dater with a ChatGPT account isn’t trying to get you to pay for his pet iguana’s surgery, misrepresentation is an age-old problem in the dating world.

The template is in place, people. You never finished reading Infinite Jest.

False expert knowledge

Once upon a time, lying about yourself required a bit of creativity. With ChatGPT, I didn’t have to use my own smarts to make up fake details about myself. It provided me with fictional expert knowledge of Asian street food, a penchant for crying in the car at REM’s Everybody Hurts, and a story about getting lost in Tuscany and ending up on a goat farm.

“[It’s] removing a lot of the prep work from lying,” Samson said.

If that sounds like a twist of the hands, well, we all have our hobbies.

I reached out to Bumble and OkCupid to see how aware apps like them are of this particular use of AI.

Bumble said it is monitoring the development of AI, broadly defined, and how it might affect both its community and its business. “We are always reviewing the latest technology considering what might make sense to add to our product,” a spokesperson said via email.

OkCupid said ChatGPT wrote down some questions to ask daters, like what they value most in a partner or how they like to spend the weekend.

WooPlus, a dating app for plus size daters, added a ChatGPT help button that users can use when they need help responding to messages from potential matches. Message interaction increased by 200% with the feature, according to a blog post, but the app also acknowledged that some users said they felt cheated by the idea.

But at least for now, there might be some hope for those worried about the intersection of AI and dating: there’s no way the restless enthusiasm of some of these prompts can find a match. After we talked, Samson asked ChatGPT for a fun fact about animals – the kind you could use in a prompt, and it gave him an answer about how sloths (again with sloths!) are pooping.

“Did you know that sloths only defecate once a week and the droppings they produce are so large that they can be up to a third of the sloth’s body weight?”

ChatGPT wasn’t done playing Casanova.

“Dating me is like getting a front-row ticket to a nonstop thrill ride, full of laughter, bubbly conversation, and spontaneous kisses.”

“One thing you should know about me is that I tend to get into a spontaneous interpretive dance at inappropriate times, but that’s how I express my joy.”

“…I can recite every line of The Office.”

Yes friends. Vast vats of data from which ChatGPT pulls, simmering with every pop culture reference imaginable – from every TV show that has sent wavelengths of light and sound into our faces since Philo Farnsworth dreamed of transmitting images in horizontal lines across receivers while plowing a field of potatoes – this advanced AI collapsed in on itself like all the other bored online daters out there.

Prompt: Write a sarcastic end of sentence for a comment about ChatGPT’s poor quality when writing dating profiles.

Answer: “Looks like ChatGPT is better at generating responses than generating romance.”

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