Grindr, the best-known gay dating app, is reportedly testing an artificial intelligence bot designed to act as a wingman for its users.
Grindr’s AI wingman will be tailored specifically to the app’s LGBTQ user base, wall street journal reported. Users will interact with Wingman like a chatbot. Grindr CEO George Arison said in an interview that a small group of users are currently testing the feature. wall street journal. The organization will expand to 1,000 users by the end of 2024 and 10,000 by 2025. Arison said he plans to provide chatbots to Grindr’s 14 million users by 2027 at the latest wall street journal.
As Grindr complaints grow, other gay dating apps try to step in
Wingman apparently tracks users’ favorite matches and makes suggestions ranging from long-term relationship candidates to date spots. Later, the wingman may be able to make restaurant reservations and chat with other wingman bots, so users have a “clear understanding” of each other when they meet, wall street journal reported.
this wall street journal Some preliminary problems with this idea are listed. First, Grindr needs to ensure that this does not pose a privacy and security risk in areas where it is ostensibly unsafe to be gay. In addition, Grindr has sold user location data through ad networks for years, and artificial intelligence data may pose another privacy risk.
Mix and match after dark
wall street journal It claims the solution will be through “empathic AI technology” provided by AI modeling company Ex-human, which Grindr struck a deal with last year. Models created by pre-humans will be trained on romantic conversations and become “gayer”. It’s unclear how these models will address these potential privacy concerns. Grindr is also embroiled in a lawsuit in the UK over leaks of users’ HIV status.
In addition to these possible issues, Grindr users are currently frustrated with the app due to mounting product issues and paywalls. In a statement to Mashable about the frustration earlier this month, a Grindr spokesperson said: “Since making a significant investment in modernizing our chat platform earlier this year, we’ve realized that our users on Grindr Technical challenges were encountered.
It remains to be seen, then, how the app’s infrastructure will respond to the introduction of chatbots, and how Grindr users will react to it. When Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd described a potential “artificial intelligence dating concierge” in an interview in May, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Given Grindr’s reputation for quick mating—VICE describes it as a “24/7 sex carousel near you” in 2022—users probably don’t want AI bots interfering with their orgies.
Mashable has reached out to Grindr for comment on AI Wingman.
