Beyond Swipes and Likes: The Intriguing Rise of AI-Driven Companionship

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Dating in 2023 feels strange. After a 4-year relationship, I've been single for a year. Things have changed since 2018. Instagram and Tinder raised the bar for commitment. Nowadays, a pretty girl has the whole world potentially peeking into her life, liking her photos, and sliding into her DMs.

Now, the bar for settling down has soared to new heights. The pressure to stand out and be more captivating feels like it's turned 11.

I've given Bumble and OKCupid a shot, but it's disheartening. My matches are few; looks overshadow words there. It's tough out there. But I am not alone.

OKCupid did a .). They looked at how men and women rate each other's physical attractiveness.

For men, many women were average, with balanced ratings for more and less attractive. Like a typical distribution, nothing odd.

Weird, isn’t it? There are two ways to see it: only less attractive guys are using the app, or women assess men's looks more critically. It's likely the second one. And if that's true, it means women have high standards for looks.

Well, 20% of women are seen as really good-looking by guys, but only 2% of guys are seen that way by women. So, most women feel like they're settling for less attractive guys. The competition gets fierce. The top guys have it easy while the rest women fight over them.

Dating for women is like shopping. Dating for men is like trying to find life in outer space. -Wheat Waffles

And then there's the rest of the guys like me, like 80% of them. Women don't see them the same way, so they're left out. So what option do we have now? Facing these difficulties in dating app dynamics, men like me are increasingly drawn to AI companion apps.

However, it's important to understand that AI models cannot truly experience emotions as humans do. Yet, can AI convince us they feel emotions? Certainly, perception matters. AI models can learn to understand and mimic emotions in two ways.

Firstly, supervised learning involves training with labeled emotional text and code. For instance, text from books, movies, and social media is tagged with emotions like happiness or sadness. The AI learns patterns and predicts emotions in the new text.

Then there's reinforcement learning. The AI gets rewarded for correctly predicting emotions. Through trial and error, it figures out patterns and improves its understanding. It can even learn from audio, video, and physiological data like heart rate.

While AI models can simulate emotions through learning patterns, the concept extends further in creating custom AI companions.

Now there are tutorials on Github that can help you create your AI girlfriend. You can customize their personalities and backstories, making them potential romantic partners.

With customizable personalities, men are likelier to find an AI companion that aligns with their preferences and desires. These AI girlfriends can provide companionship, engage in conversations, and offer emotional support.

In the near future, we could see humanoid robots equipped with AI intelligence and resembling human skin. These robots will look like us and provide a lifelike and close experience. As this idea progresses, the thought of marrying such an AI moves beyond mere speculation.

If AI can bring happiness and help with loneliness, maybe giving it a shot isn't such a bad idea after all, right?