Swiping With AI: The Journey Of A Man That Developed An AI Tinder Bot To Find His Wife

Welcome to this week’s Deep-fried Dive with Fry Guy! In these long-form articles, Fry Guy conducts an in-depth analysis of a cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) development or developer. Today, Fry Guy is exploring the story of a guy who used AI to manage his Tinder profile and ultimately find his wife. We hope you enjoy!

*Notice: We do not gain any monetary compensation from the people and projects we feature in the Sunday Deep-fried Dives with Fry Guy. We explore these projects and developers solely for the purpose of revealing to you interesting and cutting-edge AI projects, developers, and uses.*

Tinder + AI = marriage. It’s really just that simple. 

In a unique experiment, one man in search of love utilized ChatGPT and other AI tools to revolutionize his dating life on Tinder, resulting in a happily-ever-after ending. 

ONLINE DATING + AI

After a breakup in 2021, Aleksandr Zhadan did what many people do when longing for love: he took to Tinder. Unfortunately, Zhadan wasn’t having any luck. Many of the women he matched with didn’t take conversations seriously, were focused on partying and one-night-stands, and were just not the type of girls Zhadan was looking for in a lifelong partner. Not to mention, there were many times he would show up to a date only to find out the girl looked nothing like her pictures. This is par for the course on many online dating platforms. However, Zhadan still believed there were some diamonds in the rough—he just needed a more efficient way to discover them. Swiping on Tinder all day was consuming a lot of his time, and the mental turmoil just wasn’t worth it.

Luckily, Zhadan had a computer programming background and a good idea. He thought, “What if I could use AI and code to screen dates before I meet them in-person?” This way, he could filter out the girls that had red flags and find those diamonds in the rough he desired. This is exactly what he did!

He gained access to the ChatGPT API through a friend, and he programmed it as his personalized dating companion. He trained the model to recognize the exact personality traits that he liked in women along with the physical attributes he was attracted to. He also taught the model to filter out women who had potential red flags (in his eyes), including things like filtering out anyone who had any less than two pictures in their profile or had certain keywords or phrases in their bio. He then had the program automatically swipe right (like) on the preferable profiles and swipe left (dislike) on the flagged profiles, hoping to match with girls that aligned with his optimal desires.

Once there was a match, the ChatGPT-powered tool started chatting with the woman. The prompt behind this magic was, “You’re a guy, talking to a girl for the first time. Your task: not right away, but to invite them on a date.”

Although the idea initially seemed like a good one, ChatGPT failed miserably. The model was matching with girls Zhadan did not find attractive, and the conversations were downright creepy. For instance, in one case, after only three messages, the model asked a girl if she wanted to meet up for “a long walk in the woods.” On another occasion, it promised to bring a girl flowers and chocolates on the first date. When Zhadan showed up empty-handed, it was quite embarrassing. So Zhadan went back to the drawing board.

Zhadan rewrote some of his prompts to be more specific about the girls he was interested in and he also had a stroke of good fortune with the release of ChatGPT-4. This update improved the conversational abilities of the model tremendously. Zhadan also installed photo recognition logic called torchvision, which was trained to swipe positively on women based on his history of Tinder likes.

These updates changed the game. Zhadan’s model was matching with girls he found both attractive and interesting, and the model was able to carry on conversations more seamlessly. At one point, Zhadan turned off the model and decided to message some of the women himself to schedule some dates. However, this led to many women ghosting him and becoming disinterested—they actually liked talking to the AI model better. At this point, he decided to add a new feature where the AI could schedule in person dates with his matches and put them on his Google Calendar automatically.

When a date was scheduled, he copied all of the prior automated chats with that particular girl and put them into ChatGPT. He then asked ChatGPT to summarize their chat history. This would allow him to get the conversation highlights and be well prepared for his date, as if he was the one chatting with them the entire time. On any given week, Zhadan found his calendar filling up with 1-4 dates with different women. In total, the AI Tinder bot conversed with 5,239 women and scheduled over 100 dates.

With the help of his AI Tinder bot, Zhadan eventually struck gold: he met Karina Imranovna. Zhadan described her as “pretty, cheerful, and independent,” and he began to fall in love with her very quickly. At this point, he decided to shut down his AI Tinder bot to focus on this meaningful relationship it had helped him find. However, this did not stop him from using ChatGPT as an aid to his dating life. He told the model, “I need to maintain and improve my relationship with Karina,” and he took much of the advice that was given to him.

Eventually, Zhadan told Karina about his AI dating program. At first, she was a bit upset. Eventually, however, she got over the weirdness of it all, jokingly stating, “It was time for him to open a brothel.” Karina noted that initial conversations on Tinder mostly involve learning about a potential partner’s interests, hopes, and maybe their philosophies. So in light of this mindset, she really didn’t find the AI bot too much of a hindrance to the start of their relationship. In fact, if he didn’t create this AI program, she would probably never have met him in the first place.

Zhadan’s relationship with Karina continued to progress, and one day, he inputted a portion of their conversation into the model. To his surprise, the AI told him to propose. He explains, “Karina said she wanted to go to a wedding, but ChatGPT thought she’d prefer attending her own.” And what happened? “I took the advice, and she said yes.” They are now set to be married in August of this year.

HOPE FOR AI-POWERED LOVE

Online dating is a fun experience for nobody. It’s a world filled with catfish and high expectations, and the whole thing is way too time consuming.

Zhadan’s unconventional approach highlights the potential of AI in personal relationships, showcasing the transformative impact of technology on modern romance. The experiment not only saved time and heartache but also demonstrated the innovative possibilities AI brings to the realm of human connection.

On the market today, there are some AI tools available for those that are interested in having an AI model manage their online dating profile. One of the most advanced ones is CupidBot.ai, which swipes and chats for you, similarly to Zhadan’s bot. This can make the awkward small talk and time consuming process of dating much more efficient. In fact, we might imagine a future where all the small talk on both sides is done by AI, and people just show up to their AI-scheduled dates.

The ethical questions surrounding these AI dating models remain interesting. On one hand, one might question whether it is good to begin a relationship with deception. Building the relationship on a foundation of deceit might be something that causes damage to trust right away—this could cause one to feel deceived into the relationship or skeptical of what else their prospective partner is lying about. One might also argue that one of the best parts of a relationship is getting to know the other person. Discovering common interests … feeling those giddy feelings when your crush texts you … those are moments that many find exciting and crucial to a healthy relationship. On the other hand, however, online dating is a process that is often much more removed than in-person methods. Online, people are often talking to many people at once, and—as Karina emphasized—it is less about engaging in genuine conversations and more about gaining information about people to see if they are a person you want to pursue. Not to mention, the dating process can be tiring and defeating, so oftentimes people don’t bother to put their best foot forward in initial conversations and share much about themselves anyway. In this case, using AI might seem like a helpful tool to introduce oneself. But regardless of whether the AI dating bot is viewed as a moral hindrance to healthy relationships or a helpful tool to find a partner, it worked out in the end for Zhadan and Karina.

In total, the development of Zhadan’s project took about 120 hours and cost approximately $1,432. The end result, however, was surely priceless.