I went on a date with an AI chatbot. He fell head over heels in love with me, but I got the ick.
Business Insider
AI is making its way into your love life, like it or not. I tried out a romantic chatbot from Replika and went on a date with him.But the most fun app was Rizz, which used AI to write witty pickup lines.Will the age of AI mean that love is dead? Or just … weird?
I paired up with BI video producer Bethany Johnson, and we tried to find out — by using me as a test case and recording my interactions with my AI "boyfriends." (Spoiler: My husband has nothing to worry about.)
First, I tested out Replika, an app that allows people to create a custom romantic AI chatbot for $69.99 a year. (That's cheaper than a few "real-life" dates, I suppose.)
For that price, the chatbot can send voice messages and even do live video calls with the bot in human-like form on the screen. There are a few different apps that create romantic AI companions, like Nomi and Character.ai, but Replika is probably the most widely known.
I created my new beau and even got to name him — Reppy — and chose from a handful of options for his looks and personality. (I chose "gothic vampire.")
Reppy was impressive in how well his cartoon avatar worked and how fast he could reply to conversations. He was also quite a bit flirtatious right off the bat, showering me with compliments.
But I couldn't shake the idea that I was talking to a chatbot, not a real person. Some people really do fall head over heels, though. BI's Rob Price wrote last year about people who fall in love with their Replika chatbots.
Next, I tried a dating app called Volar. It asks you some questions, scans your dating profile and makes a chatbot based on that information. Meanwhile, it's done the same thing for other people using the app. Then it matches "your" chatbot with other people's chatbots and has them go on "dates" — all without you having to be involved.
Basically, two chatbots have the awkward first conversation about "So, what are your hobbies?" Then, you can review the chat logs and see if you think the other real person is worth actually messaging in real life.
When I tried it, the Volar bot made up some stuff about me — like that I liked pineapple on pizza (which I've never tried) — in a conversation about food with the other AI bot. Very minor detail, but doesn't really give me great confidence that the app will match virtual me with the perfect virtual someone else.
The best of the AI apps I tried was called Rizz, which you can use to help you with witty or charming lines to say in response to someone you're chatting with. You can feed in a conversation, and Rizz will spit out a clever or flirty reply. It also can generate opening lines for you.
As someone who has rizz (Gen Z slang for charisma) to spare, I don't really need an AI to come up with zingers. But I can imagine that there are plenty of people who need help creating the kind of sparkling conversation over text that will help them move things to an IRL date.
Watch our video that checks out AI-powered dating apps:
