Generative AI Threatens to Topple the Online Dating World
What happens when AI and Tinder collide?
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The dating app world has quickly become an unpleasant minefield of predatory economics, broken hopes, and deception. Last year, tech giant Tinder unveiled a new subscription tier that’s nearly $500 per month. For the staggering price of $499, Tinder users can pay for the ultra-premium package, called Tinder Vault, which is a massive step up from the current-highest $30 per month subscription users can buy. So far, it seems like a VIP line to other wealthy users, a way to filter out us mere mortals with low and middle-class incomes. It’s a status badge, as Gizmodo reported:
Such a subscription would make them known to the pool of people who are also willing to pay. The feature is still in early stages and the company is leaving itself room to change the name, price, or any other aspect of this potential offering.
But the pass proposes to do more. It’ll provide access to the “most active and influential” members on the platform. In other words, it’s becoming even more of a popularity contest. The same Tinder, but for rich people — who apparently spend all day on Tinder — for a modest $6,000 per year.
It seems manifestly out-of-touch that, on the one hand, Tinder would even dream of such a service when most people in the United States, let alone the world, could never conceive of making enough money to reasonably afford it. But it may not be so aloof. Perhaps it’s growing out of a quiet unease going on behind the scenes at dating app companies.
The Internet’s Grand Metamorphoses
Following the groundbreaking ChatGPT release in 2022, some tech companies have been reeling, trying to predict a volatile future while rapidly trying to forge a new strategy for dealing with the looming onslaught of AI-generated content. Once, dating apps were places for everyday people to meet like-minded singles. They weren’t thoroughly commercialized, endeavoring mightily to suck every last bit of value out of the poor user base unlucky enough to try their hand at love with a swipe.
In the old days, before dating apps, people turned to these apps to make the process simple and seamless, escaping the complicated tangles of real-life dating. Now, they’re greeted with an array of tiered subscription prices, creating the same befouled complexities they once sought to escape.
And the apps aren’t getting better. With the rise of generative AI, they’re getting precipitously worse, as today’s technological advances threaten the whole ecosystem. As I said in my eponymous essay, the era of free internet is coming to an end, thanks, in part, to the generative AI technologies that have provided us with unprecedented, godlike power to spew spam in bulk.
Tinder’s higher premiums might be attempts to facilitate vetting member profiles, collecting verifiable information about them so other people in the VIP pool (or whatever they choose to call it) can rest assured the person they’re talking to is authentic. After all, what’s to stop people from using the tools made available by AI programs to manipulate text and images and create misleading profiles to lure people into cunning traps? Nothing.
Dating App Dystopia
Dating apps are especially vulnerable to predatory practices involving user-generated media. They’re places where the users are actively seeking something meaningful to them, love, making users uniquely susceptible to exploitation. Authenticity is necessary for successful dating, especially online, meaning fraud and trickery degrade the experience for everyone.
It’s already happening. Late last year, one woman reported that she matched with a man on a dating app, who then quickly invited her out to eat. His restaurant of choice was “very specific” and when she arrived, he wasn’t there. After a while, the creeping feeling sank in, and she realized he’d stood her up. Making the best of a bad situation, she decided to eat at the restaurant, since she’d already made the effort to get dressed up.
Once she got home, she hopped on social media and read a story that was eerily similar to hers—same restaurant and all. They read similar stories of women getting stood up at very specific restaurants. Putting their heads together, they concluded restaurants are making fake dating app profiles in an attempt to lure singles into the restaurants, particularly women.
The unlucky woman said, “there are restaurants now posing as people on dating apps, just so you go to their business. And once you get stood up, they know that probably 9 times out of 10 you’re going to buy something from them.” Rumors and stories circulated on social media. TikTok became a flurry of similar experiences and, predictably, angry troll accounts commented with misogynistic digs like, “There’s a reason she’s single at her old age.” This is just one of many treacherous ruses awaiting hopefuls on today’s dating apps.
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