New Tinder Game 'Lets You Flirt With AI Characters. Three of Them Dumped Me' (msn.com)
- Reference: 0176930797
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/04/05/0414240/new-tinder-game-lets-you-flirt-with-ai-characters-three-of-them-dumped-me
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/tinder-lets-you-flirt-with-ai-characters-three-of-them-dumped-me/ar-AA1CdFyY
"Three of them dumped me."
> You can win points for banter the app deems "charming" or "playful." You lose points if your back-and-forth seems "cheeky" or "quirky"... It asked me to talk out loud into my phone and win the romantic interest of various AI characters.
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> The first scenario involved a financial analyst named Charles, whom I've supposedly run into at the Tokyo airport after accidentally swapping our luggage. I tried my best to be polite to the finance guy who stole my suitcase, asking questions about his travel and agreeing to go to coffee. But the game had some critical feedback: I should try to connect more emotionally using humor or stories from my life. My next go had me at a Dallas wedding trying to flirt with Andrew, a data analyst who had supposedly stumbled into the venue, underdressed, because he'd been looking for a quiet spot to ... analyze data. This time I kept things playful, poking fun at Andrew for crashing a wedding. Andrew didn't like that. I'd "opted to disengage" by teasing this person instead of helping him blend in at the wedding, the app said. A failure on my part, apparently — and also a reminder why generative AI doesn't belong everywhere...
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> Going in, I was worried Tinder's AI characters would outperform the people I've met on dating apps and I'd fall down a rabbit hole of robot love. Instead, they behaved in a way typical for chatbots: Drifting toward biased norms and failing to capture the complexity of human emotions and interactions. The "Game Game" seemed to replicate the worst parts of flirting — the confusion, the unclear expectations, the uncomfortable power dynamics — without the good parts, like the spark of curiosity about another person. Tinder released the feature on April Fools' Day, likely as a bid for impressions and traffic. But its limitations overshadowed its novelty...
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> Hillary Paine, Tinder's vice president of product, growth and revenue, said in an email that AI will play a "big role in the future of dating and Tinder's evolution." She said the game is meant to be silly and that the company "leaned into the campiness." Gen Z is a socially anxious generation, Paine said, and this age group is willing to endure a little cringe if it leads to a "real connection."
The article suggests it's another example of companies "eager to incorporate this newish technology, often without considering whether it adds any value for users." But "As apps like Tinder and Bumble lose users amid ' [2]dating app burnout ,' the companies are turning to AI to win new growth." (The dating app Rizz "uses AI to autosuggest good lines to use," while Teaser "spins up a chatbot that's based on your personality, meant to talk and behave like you would during a flirty chat," and people "are forming relationships with [3]AI companion bots by the millions.") And the companion-bot company Replika "boasts more than 30 million users..."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/tinder-lets-you-flirt-with-ai-characters-three-of-them-dumped-me/ar-AA1CdFyY
[2] https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/dating-apps-gotten-bad-speed-161412318.html
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ai-companions-can-relieve-loneliness-here-are-four-red-flags-to-watch-for-in-your-chatbot-friend/ar-BB1m6Goe
Flirting with robots (Score:2)
You have to go to all the effort of entertaining someone, keeping the conversation going, making the laugh (being charming and playful), all for nothing.
The person you are talking to doesn't even appreciate it.
Re: (Score:3)
It's practice. If the AI is trained on real interactions on a real human interaction database, it isn't misguided. You don't know which small talk lines or jokes scare or repulse your potential partners, but the tinder AI has been trained on many of those and presumably reacts same as a human.
Re: (Score:2)
> If the AI is trained on real interactions on a real human interaction database
Where would an actual database of such interactions exist?
Movie company archives? Fuck, no! The last thing they want is realism in their escapism.
Novels - ditto.
USENET collections of "chat-up lines" from "artists"? Sure. Not.
I inferred that Tindr users had no shame about exposing their inability to get a woman (or man, or just sex-partner) from the description as a "dating app", but I really doubt the number who'd volunteer to
Re: (Score:2)
> the tinder AI has been trained on many of those and presumably reacts same as a human.
But it can't possibly. The best it could do is react like an aggregate of many humans, and with effectively true randomness (as modern RNGs are very good) instead of the psuedorandomness that a real human would display, where their reactions are based in part on real experiences which they actually had — and are not accounted for in any model because they were not all described on the internet. As such, they could appear to make sense, but only each in isolation.
In order for a LLM to actually have a c
As pointless as Driver's Ed or a shooting range (Score:3)
> You have to go to all the effort of entertaining someone, keeping the conversation going, making the laugh (being charming and playful), all for nothing. The person you are talking to doesn't even appreciate it.
Why go to a firing range if you're not actually killing someone? Why drive around in circles with a Driver's Ed instructor if you're not commuting somewhere? Why practice your guitar when there's no audience?
You must be around more charming men than I. MOST men need help in talking to women these days. Most suck at it. Maybe you were a charming Cassanova, but I SUUUUUCKED. I got around and was a total slut. Not because I wanted to be, but because I was externally attractive-ish and good at making
contrary to popular opinion (Score:2)
... Women tend to be shit at flirting.
The dynamic remains the same as it has been for 50k years: men pursue women, women evaluate and accept or reject.
I think the idea of AI flirting is stupid fundamentally, but it's funny that in the first go if you remove the woman's massive sexual advantage from the conversation, she's 0 for 3.
Re: (Score:2)
Flirting isn't a competition.
Re: contrary to popular opinion (Score:2)
For certain people, everything is a zero sun game to them. In every interaction there is a winner and a loser.
Re: (Score:2)
And those certain people are right; in the self-fulfilling sense that there are really only mercenary reasons (sometimes unpleasant necessity, other times cynical exploitation of the dumber flavor of winning-obsessed who overvalue symbolic concessions and will trade things of actual value for them) to deal with people that insufferable.
Obviously not all of them are immediately detectable; so you get the unpleasant learning process where the people playing for fun start to wonder why that guy is getting w
AI has real potential.. (Score:2)
..to be a useful tool that helps us solve previously intractable problems.
But, people will also use it for a LOT of stoopid crap
Welcome to the moronosphere
Learn to win (Score:2)
Because relationships are all about winning. Thats how a 50 year marriage really survives, you just keep beating your spouse at the game, year after year
Re: Learn to win (Score:2)
In their 90s, still married: âoeyesss I beat them!â
Re: Learn to win (Score:2)
Gen-X women got it, at least my wife. I do not need to win, I just need to feel like I do.
Tell the bot how much you love Rogan (Score:3)
That is a sure-fire panty dropper.
Direct link to Washington Post article (Score:3)
For reference, here is the direct link to the Washington Post article
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
The above may be behind a paywall. The MSN link in the main story may be intended to help get around the paywall.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/03/dating-ai-character-tinder-game/
There are zero real people on tinder (Score:2, Insightful)
You have scammers, spammers, catfishers, and AI's but no actual people.