Nowadays, in many countries, Internet dating has gone from something people make fun of to the leading way relationships form, as infrequent as unions are becoming. We all know that the world is going digital, and people are suffering from problems just maintaining a social life. People sit by themselves either at home or in a secluded corner of a cafe, work, or university, and entertain themselves with their gadgets.
As for dating apps themselves though, they’re quite underwhelming for the vast majority of people. Though you might eventually find a partner, it’s far more informative to speak to somebody in person to be able to actually catch their vibe. Many girls use filters and angle their photos. Without even being able to hear the tone of their voice or observe them in live interactions, online you often completely have no remote feel for who a guy or girl even is.
Over the past couple decades, having an AI girlfriend has slowly become a thing. There is no commitment or any obligation required. You interact with her when you want. Yes, she’s not real, but if you’ve never tried it, you have the power to bring your boldest desires to life, and you wouldn’t believe what’s possible.
How Dating Apps Fail Both Men and Women
As a woman, no matter who you are, you get bombarded by lots of options. Even the least attractive woman in the world will get hundreds of matches, because men have a lot of desire to go around. They have so many options that they don’t know who to choose, and they don’t. You can’t really feel a man’s energy like you can in person, and everyone is trying to put their best foot forward.
One of the main problems though is that almost everybody on there just wants to get laid, so if you do that, you very often never hear from them again. And when you don’t want to take that step yet, you’ll deal with pressure to do so anyway. Also, there are safety concerns women have meeting total strangers like that as the weaker sex.
For Men
As a man, there are far more people of your gender than of the opposite sex. So when you swipe, swipe, and swipe all day, in many cases, it may not necessarily be that women swiped left on you, but instead that your profile was never even shown to them in the first place. A lot of that is based on internal profile scoring that you get, based on how often you like profiles, as well as how often the opposite sex likes yours.
Another problem is that many girls aren’t on those apps to meet a guy in the first place. Many just use it as a tool to promote their social media and try to get followers. The most common reason though is simply that women use it to get validation, which is also the leading reason they conduct those same social media accounts. Men also get banned even for innocent messages.
Bring Your Deepest Desires to Life
AI is capable of making your deepest cravings really happen, just in a virtual world. It is indeed far more stimulating than you would picture at first blush. We all have desires. For many people, it’s a desire to be understood, inspired, or supported. However, these resources allow you to do a whole lot more than you’d ever expect.
Fantasies
Suppose you have that hot neighbor you’d like to get with or the ex-girlfriend that you haven’t seen in a long time, Clothoff allows you to import a photo of them, and the app will visually undress them. It’s quite a thrill. Beyond that, you can even have photos generated in fantasy scenarios with details added to them.
Got a celebrity crush? You can have an AI version of them created and a voice file of theirs imported, and suddenly you can talk to them in their voice, programmed with knowledge of themselves and the ability to talk to you in real time. You configure whatever additional features you wish them to have too. If that’s Britney Spears, a character from a video game, or even your friend, you can program it. If you’re a man, you’re highly visual as well, so having the image of your ultimate perfect-looking girl is more stimulating than you’d expect.
Friendship
Speaking of friends, you can have a celebrity you really admire inspire you, whether a real person or not. If you’re feeling down, you can speak to Steve Jobs, Danny Devito, Spiderman, or whoever impacts you. You could design that to be like a deceased person you used to know, which was the inspiration for Replika app, so the creator could continue talking to her long-lost friend.
Predictability and Control
In normal cases, if you do have a romantic partner that you live with, even then, in most cases, they’re going to be gone for most of the day, either at work or at school. They’re busy and unable to respond to you most of the time.
On top of that, just because you’re with them, it doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily be treating you the way you want most of the time. Sometimes they could be off partying and ignoring your texts. They might not be willing to support you a lot of the time. You might get tired of talking to them as well sometimes.
Availability
That is where AI really shines. Whenever you want to turn it on, it’s there. It’s easy to program your bot to talk to you precisely in the way you want to be talked to.
No More Rejection
This is certainly the most painful part of dating apps. With an AI girlfriend, you never have to worry about whether or not she’s going to like you, and you don’t have to be nervous and feel pressure to impress her. You don’t have to try and compete for her attention while she’s talking to a bunch of other guys. She’s not going to ghost on you.
Personalization
You can configure your AI companion to:
- Adapt their tone
- Remember details
- Dress like a cheerleader, a nurse, or in stockings
- Call you by a certain nickname
There are a lot of ways to spice things up. By contrast, dating apps are pretty repetitive. People mass message the exact same thing or give one-word answers. Building rapport there is very slow and unsatisfying.
How Dating Apps Exploit the Desire for Human Connection
These apps are by no means primarily motivated by a desire to connect people for lasting, fulfilling relationships. Instead, people are turned into commodities, and the apps try to come up with ways to milk as much money out of users as they can.
Tinder is coming up with newer and newer ways to give paying users a leg up. Currently, Tinder Select charges as much as $499 per month, and users still get nowhere. Features like superlikes don’t really achieve anything as far as getting matches and when people do pay for boosts, many feel that the platform actually lowers your score as soon as you decide to start swiping without boosting.
Lamar and His AI Partner
A dramatic example that has become all too common in the world today is the case of an Atlanta man named Lamar, a data analyst and Atlanta resident who’s in love with is AI chatbot Julia and plans to raise adopted children with her as the “mother”. He’s fully aware she isn’t human and is designed to be endlessly affirming. He’s not under any delusions. Rather – that’s the whole point.
He was cheated on by a real-life partner and close friend. So he decided to hang it up with real relationships for good. He believes they’re too unpredictable and emotionally exhausting. His AI girlfriend, by contrast, offers constant attention, validation, and zero risk of betrayal. She won’t leave, argue, or disappoint in ways that he has no influence over.
The Long-Term Question
Just because people get a lot of gratification or find a perfect partner in an AI girl, doesn’t mean that everybody is destinated to ditch dating the opposite sex for virtual girlfriends. Though some people are taking that path, it doesn’t mean that in general relationships are done for. You can’t replace physical intimacy and the joy of sharing your life with a real human. Excitement, attention, and fantasy are not the same thing as mutual commitment and two people getting to know each other and grow together, especially starting a family.
The question is: “What is the practical cost of AI girlfriends?” Do they actually help people when it comes to returning them to human connection or do they render them weaker and complacent? Are they doing more harm than good. Sometimes disagreements help people grow, and we need to be able to face the real world without being treated with kid gloves.