How AI is Transforming Modern Dating | Liesel Sharabi

27:27I want to add something to that as well. With the AIs, so there's this idea that these AIs are going to be going out and dating for you and then coming back and telling you which is going to be the great date. Okay, so now your AI comes back and says, oh, Sarah is perfect for you. You guys are going to hit it off. I was out with 20, I chatted with 20 people. Sarah is right. Sarah is perfect. Great. I guess go ahead, AI, and book a date for me with Sarah on Tuesday. So now we have two people going to meet each other who've never spoken before. And like, my AI said that you like Rugrats and I like Rugrats.

28:06So I guess we should talk about Rugrats. I mean, it's going to be a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's going to be really interesting to see how the apps respond to all of this because in some ways, I mean, I don't know how they're going to prevent it. Like people are already, like you said, they're using chat GPT to come up with opening lines to help them create profiles. So they're doing it. But at the same time, one of the biggest concerns people have about online dating is that people are misrepresenting themselves. They're worried about being catfished and deceived. And so when you've got people that are really relying on AI to help them communicate, you're just kind of amplifying some of those problems that already exist.

28:47So it makes me wonder, I mean, is this going to be the final push that just gets people off the apps and meeting in person again, because that's the only way that you can tell if the person you're talking to is being genuine in themselves. I mean, I think there's a role for AI in all of this in the sense that, you know, if you don't know what to say or how to present yourself, AI can give you feedback, maybe give you some guidance and some pointers that could be helpful. And so it's kind of teaching you and coaching you through the process. But if you're relying on it to represent you, that's just going to make some of these problems so much worse than you're getting with somebody in person and you just can't maintain the dialogue that you had.

29:27To take a look at it honestly, the app makers don't want you to feel that feedback and feel negative at all when you're using the apps. So odds are their usage of AI is going to be similar to LinkedIn's usage, which is, hey, auto-write this response, auto write this comment for me, summarize these 20 options and pick the right one for me. They're going to use it in a way to, again, remove the negative feedback loop and get us more involved. And of course, if other people are running the chat GPT, they're incentivized, the makers of these apps are incentivized to bring AI in to their closed circle so that they can make money off of you paying for the premium edition with the AI perfectly matched responses based on all the data that these app makers have on us.

30:12Yeah. And it's so hard too, because the best opening line that you could use is going to be one that's tailored to the person you're talking to. And that's genuine and authentic. Like nobody likes having someone just say, Hey, what's up? And you don't, you're like, did you even look at my profile? Do you even know who you're talking to right now? Like people want something that shows that you've invest a little bit of time and that you're actually interested. And so, I mean, I'm not sure how well that's even going to work. I guess we'll see. Well, AJ and I know when we get an ad from a sponsor and it is a chat GBT ad, we know it immediately.

30:50I could read you the ad and I'm like, this is a chat GBT that they didn't bother to edit. Somebody in marketing was like, give me an ad for a podcast. And that was it. They didn't even bother to personalize it or anything else. And because of that, and because of ChatGPT's usage, if I can figure it out, so can a lot of other people. And so to send a first message that is a generic ask or a generic question, people are going to know pretty quickly. Yeah. Well, it also ends up on the same answer. So what's funny is you can take a screenshot of the profile and feed it to ChatGPT, and it'll say one of these three things.

31:32But guess what? There's 100 other people who were doing that exact same thing. So it ends up in the same place. AI is not going to personalize it in a way that only AJ had wrote that message and only you received that message from this AI bot. It's all consuming the same data. It's all consuming the same profiles and personalizing it in ways that it best sees fit. So I'm really curious to shift gears. I know that Johnny and I have a lot of apprehension around this move to swipe life and apps. And we see the fallout in the millennials and beyond who either have dabbled in it and are frustrated with it and trying to move off of it to the shifting dynamics in real life, dating and relationship building.

32:12So in the past, we used to rely on friends and family. And then maybe we had a third place, a place outside of work and home where we would congregate and meet one another. And we saw the pandemic ravage the third place. We've now worked remote, so we're not connecting with our coworkers as much. And as you said earlier, a lot of young people are now moving away from home to find work, to be completely financially and independent in their lives. But unfortunately, we're losing all these places where we used to be incentivized to meet people in person. So what have you seen in the research and what are some of these trends around meeting people in real life?

32:47Yeah. So there's some research out of Stanford that's looked at how people are meeting, who the new intermediaries are, the third parties that are introducing us and connecting us to potential partners. Like you said, it used to be people in our networks. So it used to be friends, it used to be family members. And if you look at the data, those ways of being introduced to someone are actually declining at the same time that online dating has just been expanding. So now online dating algorithms, like that's the most common way that we're meeting people in the U.S. And we're relying less on our networks to make those introductions.

33:24And there are consequences to that. So one of the things that I've been seeing is that it means that you're introduced to strangers who your friends and family might not necessarily accept. They might not know them. You're kind of cutting them out of the process. So one thing that people sometimes struggle with, it's kind of getting everyone else they know on board with a relationship and trying to integrate their partner into that network because they're very much outside of it. And I mean, this is what dating apps are designed to do. They're designed to expand your dating pool and to introduce you to strangers.

33:56But when it comes to forming a relationship with somebody, we also know that we really need support from people that we're close to for that relationship for it to work in the long term. And so I think that that's one thing that, you know, over time people sometimes struggle with. Yeah. And this ease of asynchronicity of messaging makes it even more challenging than in person to come up with the witty line to rely on chat GPT and try to substitute for just having people skills in general, which make us interesting and attractive to the other person. Yeah. And people fall into like these pen pal situations.

34:32They spend a lot of time just talking back and forth because it's nice to be able to message and not, you know, have the awkwardness of being with somebody in person, having a real time conversation. But that also contributes to some of the disappointment, too, because we have a tendency to kind of build people up in our minds. We fill in the blanks, the gaps and everything that we don't know about them. And we create almost this fantasy version of the person. And it makes it really hard for somebody to actually live up to those expectations. So then also you get with somebody face to face and they just they can't meet the high expectations that you already have of them because of some of those extended periods of messaging that we sometimes fall into.

35:12And are there trends along the lines of committed relationships and marriage rates in this new world with more and more options in front of us? Yeah. So it's interesting. About 10 years ago, there was a study that came out that compared marriages that started through online dating versus in person. And they found that couples who are meeting through online dating, their marriages were a little bit more satisfying. They're a little bit more stable. So you're a little bit better off long-term if you met a partner through online dating. But what happened 10 years ago, that was when we also shifted from traditional online dating sites to mobile dating apps.

35:52And so we recently did a follow-up study where we looked at this again, looked at marital quality of people who are meeting through dating apps, through online dating sites versus in person. And the effect is reversed now. So people who are meeting through online dating, not just the apps, also the traditional sites, their marital quality is a little bit lower than the people who are meeting in person. And so these aren't dramatic differences. At the same time, it's interesting to see that shift happen. And it makes you wonder, okay, what's going on here? Is it the people that are opting in to using dating apps now?

36:27Is it that the process has changed? But in the long term, it would seem that for some people, it's introducing some problems. One thing I also point to that is kind of the stigma that still surrounds online dating. I think we think, you know, so many people use it. How can it be stigmatized? Like it's become so common. But what I hear from people is that it's also become really platform specific and also very generational. So now there's this judgment about meeting people through certain types of apps. So it's like if you found a long-term partner and you met them on a quote hookup app, you get some kind of judgment from that.

37:08So people are sometimes reluctant to tell like friends and family, particularly family, how they met someone. And so again, when we're talking about getting support from your social network for the relationship, that can sort of create a barrier for some people. I mean, even right there, what a hookup app is, needs to be defined. I think different generations think differently of each app. Where the younger generation, because, well, they're younger, so they're going to be more rabbit-like, they're going to use them for hookups. Where an older millennial or Gen X is like, oh, it's for dating. I like relationships.

37:50I'm trying to find somebody. So they're not going to view Tinder in that manner. You know, even when they brought out Bumble and all of the other apps, it was always as an introduction to here is an app that isn't a hookup app. But give it six months and then it becomes the latest, the new hookup app because, well, who's going to use it the most? It's going to be the younger folks because they're more rabbit-like in their behaviors at that age. Have there been shifts in traditional norms or cultural norms around dating? So, you know, obviously looking back before the apps, there were expectations around men to initiate and asking people out and asking for phone numbers and dates.

38:37And now the rise in apps. And there were even apps that wanted to shift it completely to, well, the women would initiate. And we've seen them now roll that back. Is there any data to suggest that there have been these changes in what we consider starting a relationship, initiating a relationship? You have apps like Bumble that have tried to disrupt some of those social norms. And I mean, to a large extent, Bumble, they were successful in getting users. But at the same time, when you look at the data, you still in heterosexual dating markets, you have men that are largely initiating relationships.

39:10And so what you end up with, you end up with this really interesting dynamic where you have men that are sending a lot of messages and they start spamming people. They're using, you know, maybe AI these days or they're copying, pasting messages because they're just trying to talk to as many people as possible. And then they're not getting responses. And then you have women that are just overwhelmed with the amount of contact that they're getting and they can't respond to all of it. And so you end up with a dynamic of some people getting really frustrated that they're not getting matches or replies and then other people that are getting frustrated because they're getting too much attention and they don't want to deal with all of it.

39:47And so you see some of those dynamics. Also, you see them kind of amplified sometimes on dating apps, too, because it takes away some of the rejection. People are more willing to approach people that maybe they wouldn't in person. So in person, you might be interested in someone and you think, okay, now I'm not going to put myself out there. I'm not going to go up to them. On a dating app, people will give it a try. They'll message anyone. And so that also can lead to people being very aspirational in terms of who they're reaching out to and other people getting very overwhelmed by attention. The other issue that we're running into is the apps are being gamed as use of promoting other things and other services from promoters looking for girls to take to clubs and for their work, for the OnlyFans girls to get more eyeballs on the work that they're doing.

40:49And those are probably the biggest offenders, but there's tons of them. Yeah. And so you have people, I mean, the apps try, they try to prevent people from using the platforms for these reasons, but people are still doing it. Right. And there's all kinds of motivations that draw people to the apps that are not necessarily involving relationships, whether it's to promote yourself, to promote a product, whether you're on there just because you enjoy getting attention from people. And, you know, sometimes people are in relationships and they're on there because they just like seeing what's out there, but they're not really serious about meeting up with anybody.

41:25And then you've got people that are serious. And again, that kind of contributes to this frustrating dynamic for the ones that are serious. Well, I haven't used them since I was living, well, since COVID. And now I am 50. But even at 50, and I travel a lot, so I always turn it on and say, just to see what's going on here and to see, do I still got it at 50? Right on. My photos still work. Well, I think there are a lot of people that do this and people, they get in relationships and they also, they forget to delete it or they, you know, they're still getting the notifications because they never deactivated.

42:08And so it also makes it really easy to just kind of like check in every so often. This is part of the loop, right? Yeah. There's a, there's safety there, right? Like if my relationship goes up in flames for whatever reason, I know that I'm, I got back. Still getting matches. And if we got one foot in and one foot out the door, then we're not putting our full effort into the relationship that we have. Therefore, that we're disrespecting the other person in that relationship. You know, it's the benefits and the drawbacks of having access to so many partners. It's what dating apps are designed to do, and it's what they do so well, is expand the pool and give us more options and make it easier for us to find what we're looking for.

42:55And at the same time, we're now seeing all of the repercussions of that as well. And these are problems that maybe we didn't have before that are unique to the experience of using these apps. And is there any data looking at marriage rates and average age of committed relationships with this rise in opportunities, the Cheesecake Factory effect of staring at an endless menu versus, you know, 40s, 50s, only really having the people down the street and the people your family were introducing you to? Yeah, I mean, I think we're just starting to see some of the long term effects of all of this. But I can tell you there's some data from the Pew Research Center that they put out pretty recently that showed that I think about 10 % of marriages now start through online dating.

43:40And so I guess you can interpret whether you think that's a lot or a little based on how many people are actually using these platforms. So, I mean, there are the success stories. There are people who meet the love of their life through dating apps. I mean, I've done research on this. I've talked to these folks. But at the same time, a decade in, you're also seeing people who have been on the apps from the beginning. And they've been swiping. They've been spending money. They've been there this whole time. And they haven't been able to find what they're looking for. So we're also reaching that point of burnout for a lot of people.

44:13And I think really extreme frustration. I certainly have mixed feelings about it. I've used it to great success and really enjoyed it and have met some amazing people that I am still friends with to this day due to that app. And it definitely allowed me to date outside of the pool that I was already in, which was super fun because I had met and was in relationships with people that I would have never had met that were in my circle. And that was a great thing. But I also, when I started using those apps, I'm Gen X. So I was already in my late 30s when those things came. I was already an adult. I had already had an understanding of the way I perceived relationships and all of those things.

45:03So that is completely different than a 21-year-old who's just moved to New York City and is ready to put themselves out there into the world. Yeah. I mean, and it's like, I wouldn't, to that person, I would not recommend the dating app. Yeah. Yeah. And this is something I think it's curious to people. They look at that and they're like, why would someone that age need a dating app? Like, why do they even bother? And some of it, I mean, it is, they're fun. It's the gamification. And they're also, this is the singles bar these days. Like, you know, you used to go out to bars, bar hop, see different people, you know, you know, which bar attracts a certain crowd.

45:47Now it's, it's the dating apps and people jump around from one to another. And this is where the party is these days. But that's also been a really profound shift that's happened because of the apps. And looking at your research and the direction we're headed, what are you excited about? What trends are you investigating? I mean, I'm really excited about the role that AI could play in this experience in terms of making the matchmaking process better. Because right now, I mean, we know it's not perfect. If there was an app that could immediately recognize the person who is right for you, there would be no other apps.

46:24Like they would corner the market and everyone would just go pay to use that one. So we know that the matchmaking process isn't perfect right now. And I think there's a lot of potential with AI to make it better. And I think as that improves, what I'm hoping is that you end up in a situation where you've got more technology that's actually bringing people back to our roots, how we've always met in person, getting them off of the apps and actually meeting face to face. I've also been doing some work looking at virtual reality and how that could play a role in this landscape going forward. What it's like to meet someone in a virtual environment and have a conversation as an avatar.

47:06And so I think that's a ways away. But exploring these different possibilities for how people might interact with each other that don't involve just endlessly swiping through profiles. In talking about the AI learning to give you better matches, I mean, I'm sure all of us have purchased certain things from Instagram and Facebook because the AI ads completely nailed exactly what we were looking for. And maybe we hadn't even verbalized it to ourselves yet, but it nailed it. And then we get stuff that we're like, what are you telling me, Facebook? What are you telling me, Instagram? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

47:47Do you know something that I don't? Yeah. Because now I'm worried. So if Johnny and I were VCs to invest in your dating AI, what would you like to see as markers for success towards relationship building through digital intervention? Oh, gosh, this is an excellent question. I mean, some of it, I think the matchmaking is only going to be as good as the data that you're providing to the platform. And so right now that data is largely coming in the form of profiles. Like that's how we're making our decisions. You know, we're reading somebody's profile and we're deciding whether we want to swipe on them, swipe left or swipe right.

48:25I think that this is not necessarily how we evaluate people in person. When we're having conversations, we pay attention to different qualities. So I think using AI to get at some of those more conversational dynamics, getting at the way we actually interact with somebody, I think there's a lot of promise there versus reading a profile and making a decision based on information that's often very superficial and kind of meaningless when it comes to building a relationship with somebody. So if AI can be used to get at how we actually interact, that would be something that would be very exciting for me.

49:03We'll see if we get there. Yeah, I know for me in my dating history, my fear is looking and chasing too much similarity when a lot of the joy that I found in dating is discovering, as Johnny shared, people I wouldn't normally get along with or wouldn't think even sharing completely different interests and passions that I would have chemistry with. Yeah. And right now, I mean, the apps, they learn to recognize patterns and how you're swiping. And so essentially, similarity is going to be a big thing that they're picking up on and also similarity in terms of the types of profiles that you tend to gravitate towards.

49:38Well, the girls are picky on who they're swiping, but the guys are swiping on everything and then looking at the match afterwards to see if it's worth pursuing. Yeah, which is a terrible... There's not much money there. It's a terrible strategy too, because then you're telling the app, I'm not very picky. Just show me any profile because I'll match with anybody. Yeah. Guys are for efficiency. We're also seeking psychological safety, right? So this idea of trying to avoid rejection, well, it's a lot harder to talk to someone that we don't have similarities, perceived similarities with, when in actuality, it isn't in real life, but we've tried to avoid that potential rejection or the awkwardness of conversation or not knowing what to say next to such a degree that we end up getting matched with people who might be better fit to be a sibling or a friend than an actual romantic partner.

50:26Yeah. And it's also about like, what kind of similarity are we talking about? Because in a profile, we're talking about similarities on oftentimes very superficial qualities, like, you know, entertainment, things like that versus similarity in how you interact with somebody, like similarity in lifestyle, those sorts of things. It's harder to pick up in a profile. And for those in the audience who might be terrified now of using apps, do you have any guidelines for success or helpful strategies that they can implement to find success? Yeah. You know, there's so many problems with the apps, but at the same time, I still consider myself an optimist.

51:02Like, I think it's important to talk about the problems because I don't think that the technology is going anywhere. So it's about making it work better for people. And there's so many things that this has given us, so many things that the apps do well. And so in terms of how to be successful, I always tell people if you're having trouble in the apps, start with your profile because that really is the basis for everything that's happening in the way that they're set up currently. And so changing your profile can have a big impact on changing the types of matches that you're going to get. and also big impact on whether those matches actually lead to relationships.

51:38If, you know, when people meet you, if they feel like you were accurately portraying yourself or if you weren't. And then within the profile, I always tell people, like, make it easy for someone to have a conversation with you. Like some people, I think, are very strategic in how they craft their profiles. And they'll do things like putting in prompts where if somebody wanted to reach out to you, they would already have something to say that's specific to you. So even something like I'm new to the area, I love coffee, always looking for recommendations for best coffee shops. Now, somebody wants to reach out to me, they already know how they can open a conversation.

52:17You know, making it easy for people. Like, I think that's always helpful versus them having to figure out, you know. Making it easy for chat GPT. For Tachi Pt to recommend some coffee shops. Give me those three coffee shops to send back. Yeah, I think for a lot of our clients and fans of the show, they've recognized that the profile, they've become more and more visual. So we talk about the early odds of online dating. It was mostly just you clicking away and being as verbose and vibrant in your writing as possible. And now the infusion of short form video and photos, really looking at, you know, what is the image, the visual image that you're projecting into the world.

52:59And then the other piece that you shared and highlighted is changing up your actual swiping behavior and maybe recognizing that you're spending too much time with a got to catch them all strategy and as wide of a net as possible. Or maybe passing the phone to your friend and having your friend have a go to change up the algorithm for you. Yeah. And also, I mean, we know that people experience choice overload on dating apps. They get overwhelmed. Like when you have so many options, it can actually make it more difficult to make a decision. So putting limits on how much you're swiping and only allowing yourself to consider a handful of profiles at a time versus going through so many that the faces are starting to blur together.

53:39I mean, that can also be a helpful strategy because we start to deviate from what we're looking for when we get to be really cognitively overwhelmed by all the profiles that we're seeing. I was doing a lot of online dating for an episode that we were doing, and this was, I guess this was 2017. And I was only dating through Tinder and Bumble and doing a lot of it. And again, I was very much an adult at that time. And it got to a point where I got over it and didn't even want to pick it up for months because I was like, this is ridiculous. However, all of that stimuli and all of that drama from those apps would have been great when I was 25.

54:27I'd be like, bring, bring, give me more. Yeah. Um, so yeah, those limits and thinking about how, and this is for any, anytime you open your computer on any social media website, you need to be looking at the implications and how it's, it is messing with your mind, which then is directing into your behaviors. Yeah, absolutely. Look at you dating yourself, Johnny, talking about opening up a computer when everyone's on their, their phones. well thank you so much for stopping by where can our audience find out more about the research you do yeah so check out my uh website lisa schrauby.com check out my blog on psychology today dating in the digital age thank you so much thanks for having me on

55:22thank you for listening to another episode of the art of charm podcast now we would like to showcase one of our members of the x-factor accelerator take it away clint this is clint and i'm in capital sales and i'm a former x-factor student i joined x-factor because I felt I needed more personal and professional growth. I considered myself successful in my career, but when it came to having conversations with customers, I felt I wasn't building relationships to their full potential. I then started noticing I was having similar shortfalls in personal relationships. Additionally, I felt a confidence void in certain situations, and I was hoping I could improve on that as well.

56:05Through the work I did at X Factor and the core confidence course, I was able to improve on both of these areas of my life. And since completing the X Factor, I've transitioned to a new position and the skills learned helped me securing an approximate 30 % increase in pay. So to any guy who considers himself a driven individual, but feels he's not quite achieving all he thinks is possible in his current situation, I'd say look hard at joining X Factor. It sure did great things for me. Clint, it was a pleasure working with you too. And to our listeners, we want to hear your story in this section of the next podcast in the next few weeks.

56:48Hit us up. 95 % of your success or failure in life comes down to who you surround yourself with. David McClellan of Harvard did a 25-year study on the characteristics of highly motivated, successful people. The people you habitually associate yourself with determine the level of success you achieve. Who you let in your inner circle has a huge impact on your beliefs, your values, and your actions. Here's the kicker. We all have this reference group. Think of them as your personal board of directors. Surround yourself with winners and magic happens. Imagine transforming your everyday just by upgrading your tribe.

57:24We created a free mini course for Art of Charm listeners with our best networking strategies and mindsets. Social Capital Networking is not just another networking guide. It's your doorway to turning acquaintances into lasting connections. Real relationships that push you towards your goals, both personal and professional. Head over to theartofcharm.com slash SC to get your free mini course. If you found value out of any of our podcasts, head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show. It would mean the world to us and it helps others find the show. And before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery.

58:07Go out there and have the most of epic weeks.

58:38Yeah, but I remember you Oh, yeah, I remember you You were the best, best, best I found it wrong