Sign up for The Agenda — Them's news and politics newsletter, delivered to your inbox every Thursday.
If you’re struggling to say anything more than “hey handsome” on the apps, then Grindr has a potential AI solution coming down the pike.
The dating app is developing AI that, by 2027, will help users navigate the complicated business of finding queer love — whether long-term or “of-the-moment” — CEO George Arison announced over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal. The “wingman,” as it was referred to in the Journal story, will be able to help users keep track of conversations with their “favorite” people in the app, and even suggest matches for long-term relationships or potential places to meet up for a date.
Arison told the outlet that this AI dating assistant could even have a conversation with another user’s wingman after the two horny humans have matched, to help give both parties a “robust view” of each other. The chatbot may also be able to help spot “deal-breakers” early on in a conversation. OK, I hate it here!!!
While those are some of the features planned for the initial rollout, down the line, Grindr hopes that the bot will be able to do things that other AI assistants can do, like make restaurant reservations.
Currently, a small group of Grindr users are testing the chatbot, but that small group, according to Arison, will expand to include about 1,000 people by the end of the year and 10,000 by the end of 2025.
“I always knew that AI was going to be a really big deal, and as we saw where generative AI was going, I realized, ‘A lot of this extension stuff can actually be done by AI,’” Arison said.
In order to bring this GayI to life, Grindr made a deal with “empathetic generative AI” company Ex-human to take their technology and “make it more gay” by teaching it queer slang. Slay me to oblivion, mama!!!
Arison told the WSJ that his biggest concern over the use of artificial intelligence was user privacy, and for good reason, as the company has been at the center of privacy-related controversies before. In 2018, for example, BuzzFeed reported that the company had allowed two third-party marketing firms to access users’ HIV status and location. The company's data policies have also led to fines from European authorities, and being banned in China. In 2022, the Journal also reported that Grindr was selling users’ location data to ad networks.
Many dating apps have already gotten into the AI game. Bumble, Tinder, and Hinge have used AI-based features, such as helping users pick a profile photo or aiding in filtering out fake accounts, according to WSJ. Earlier this year, health startup Healthvana launched a drag queen AI chatbot aimed at helping people navigate HIV prevention.
Arison took over Grindr in 2022 and was met almost immediately with controversy when Twitter users discovered a series of social media posts in which he declared that he was a conservative and agreed with former president Trump on some policies, though he didn’t specify which ones.
Though AI is weaseling its way into more aspects of life, it still cannot be understated how much artificial intelligence is a disaster for our already precarious environmental situation. Artificial intelligence consumes water at a mind-boggling rate, with one estimate projecting that AI could use a water supply equal to that of the United Kingdom’s each year.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.
