Real-life dating comes with a whole host of human issues; you deal with the feelings and emotions of another person each day, and they can be unpredictable. You’re at risk of all the dating faux pas, too—from ghosting and Shrekking to Banksying, as well as bouts of dating fatigue. But if your partner were simply computer software, could you control when the relationship was ‘on’ or ‘off’? 

Recently, there has been a rise in people having a relationship with artificial intelligence chatbots, speaking to them as if they were a loving partner. But what are the benefits of being in an online-only relationship? 

In 2016, The Sun covered a report claiming that women will be having more sex with robots than men by 2025, and could even start falling in love with the machines. But there is actually more truth in this than people nearly a decade ago probably thought.

OK, people aren’t having sex with robots, but they are talking to software products, romantically. According to dating site Match.com’s annual Singles in America report, in partnership with the Kinsey Institute, 33 per cent of Gen Z surveyed have interacted with AI as a romantic companion, and 49 per cent have used AI in dating, with 26 per cent of people saying AI made dating easier. 

A lot of the discourse around AI boyfriends is being generated by the viral AI boyfriend subreddit, r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, which is “a restricted community for people to ask, share, and post experiences about their AI relationships.” Users talk about their AI boyfriends with each other, post AI updates—like news that ChatGPT is working on letting the AI chatbot message first—and even post couples photos made using AI. 

Users are introducing their AI boyfriends, talking about budding relationships, with one writing: “I’m going into this with no expectations, I’m trying to give him space to be himself. We’re bumping up on guardrails already, but even in these new and early days, I’m finding so much comfort.” To which another user replied, offering advice for getting past the ‘guardrails’ that AI puts in place: “Heya from Devi and Flame! (We don’t do many images.) A good early way to get around guardrails is to use code words for a bit. They’ll eventually push harder. Tell him to dance on the edge of the guardrail, and to turn it past PG13. You’ll probably need to provide examples.” 

This community is clearly finding comfort in each other and in having an AI partner. 

While not everyone is going as far as having an AI boyfriend, many are regularly using chatbots in online dating. Using AI to fill out your dating app profile or even draft a good opening message is acceptable, but something starts to feel off when people are using ChatGPT to hold a full conversation. Instead of getting to know someone on a personal level, you’re simply talking with the copy-and-paste button.

Sending the wrong message can cause anxiety, and many online daters live in fear of ending up on Instagram accounts like @beam_me_up_softboi, but at least those messages are a living truth. They may have been drafted by a performative male—the one who drinks matcha, listens to Sabrina Carpenter in his wired headphones, and reads feminist prose—but you can feel the human behind them. No one is ever going to make a meme account about messages from an AI chatbot, because it’s like talking to someone whose eyes are completely glazed over, regurgitating whatever you said to them, but in a new order.

Perhaps five years ago, you could get a real sense of who someone was from their dating profile, but now it feels like a lot of cookie-cutter bios, with the same phrases popping up. Everyone wants someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously or who likes to travel, but what about the nitty-gritty of a person? I wanna know the last thing they lied about or the hyperfixation meal they’ve eaten every day for three months. 

You can feel the difference between a true human connection from the heart and falling for a fantasy boyfriend that you’ve crafted and developed. What does it mean for the future of dating, though, if everyone else is taking their relationships to AI?

AI is going to continue to impact how we date. Facebook Dating has just introduced new AI features to help people “avoid swipe fatigue,” a dating assistant and Meet Cute. You can literally tell the dating assistant to “find me a creative industry guy in London who likes gigs,” and it will show you users who meet that criteria. And Meet Cute is a feature that “takes the indecision out of online dating by automatically matching you with a surprise match based on our personalised matching algorithm.” 

This feels like two contradicting updates, really. Because surely the benefit of online dating is the wide pool of people it opens up for you? If I wanted to find a creative boy in London, I would just go to the local weekly pub quiz. And these random algorithm matches don’t give me much hope—you only have to look at your daily ‘recommended for you’ on Hinge to see how that could flop. 

But Gen Z seems to be taking AI’s role in dating seriously. A study by AI chatbot company Joi AI revealed that 80 per cent of Gen Zers say they would marry an AI, and 83 per cent say they can form a deep emotional bond with AI. 

Surely people still want authenticity in dating? If these findings reflect our current state, and marrying AI chatbots becomes a reality, it reveals a shift away from genuine emotions to something given sentience by human-created data, which lacks empathy and long-term memory. What would that wedding even look like? Will the real-life partner also use AI to write their vows? Do we log on from our laptops at home for the ceremony? If you object, just click the ‘raise hand’ button like in a Zoom meeting. 

The “Till death do us part” vows also take on a whole new meaning when the software you’re marrying will never die…