Bumble, the company that distinguished itself from apps like Tinder by creating a “feminist dating app,” hasn't done the brand many favors lately. Yes, there was an ad campaign shaming women who chose celibacy—which the company wisely retracted this week. There was also the tentative announcement that Bumble could take back its defining “women make the first move” ethos.
Then there were the strange remarks from Bumble founder and #girlboss icon Whitney Wolfhard last week, who informed the audience at Bloomberg's Tech Summit that “a world where your dating concierge can go and do it for you.” Can meet with another dating concierge.” Naturally, these “gatekeepers” will use artificial intelligence software, which users can train through “shares”.[ing] your insecurities” and thus help “training”. to yourself In a better way of thinking about yourself,” Wolfhard claimed.
This, by the way, will be the secret to getting Bumble out of its post-pandemic financial hole: “We're going to lean fast and furious. We already have. … We're going to win. That's how we're going to be.” As people meet.”
If that seems like murky confidence, it might be because it was the same pitch Wolf Herd was making last year, before he was fired as Bumble's CEO in November due to its poor financial performance. Resigned from the post. As he told Bloomberg three months before his exit, you can “leverage a chatbot to build trust, to make someone feel really safe before they go and talk to a group of people.” Get help.” In other words, consult a dating coach robot—one that hopefully doesn't come from the Straussian world of toxic pickup artists.
It doesn't matter that we already have trouble getting everyday people to get too attached to the thousands of chatbot personalities that populate the internet. It doesn't matter that other startups are leveraging custom online dating personalities like EVA AI. Never mind that Bloomberg himself tested various AI-dating startups last year and found them to be in demand. It doesn't matter that Wolf Herd's continued applications of AI have failed to juice Bumble's stock price, though it's been a (temporarily) winning strategy for other tech companies. Folks, the future of “feminist” dating is a weird bot that will just go ahead and score other bots for you. No need for transparency or human feedback, right?
Of course, the Wolf Herd can easily see how its rivals are doing, although, like Bumble, they themselves aren't in such a hot spot. Match Group, the parent company of Tinder and OKCupid, recently found that even its own popular apps were losing market share and money-making power. A ChatGPT-authored press release from February announcing that Match was partnering with OpenAI didn't help matters at all. So the strategy now is to focus on its relatively younger offering, Hange, even as Match fights a consumer lawsuit that claims both Hange and Tinder are overpaying for their subscription costs and user fees. There are exploitative and “predatory” experiences.
Meanwhile, Grindr, the LGBTQ+ app that laid off half its staff last year, is still hoping to recover its plummeting stock value, perhaps waiting to deploy a chatbot. which can train itself on users' private messages. (Grindr might want to tread carefully there, as it is being sued in the UK for … selling daters' sensitive personal information, such as their HIV status, to third-party advertisers.)
For tech companies and startups that had their business models shut down by high interest rates, it makes sense to make big announcements about AI that will impress your investors. It worked for Rent the Runway, whose stock soared after an AI-bullish earnings call last month, and it's working for all the S&P companies whose AI interests have helped them outperform their chart rivals. is causing But such high-profile experiences haven't fueled Match and Grindr in the same way this year. While Bumble has seen some resurgence this year, the change in fortunes can be attributed to more quotidian developments (eg, updated logo, new question-asking features, higher payments for subscription services) rather than robot profiles.
This is one area in particular where Zoomers and millennials face social networks that are completely saturated with auto-generated photos and statuses and accounts, really. Really In search of that ultimate human connection. Right now, dating apps aren't catching on with these valuable demographics, not least thanks to the proliferation of catfishing scams and a nonstop flood of fake dating options. If the vetting and paranoia of the user base is so obvious that even Zayn Malik can't use Tinder for casual dating without being accused of catfishing, then send out an army of more fake profiles to fuel such mistrust. Why should it be extended?
For one thing, careful use of modern chatbots can certainly be beneficial in helping online dating — to brainstorm openers and quips, to practice basic conversational rules, to break the ice. So, to customize and improve your communication. But outsourcing the entire construction of relationships to some bloodless avatar who decides to make all your choices for you won't do us any favors in terms of loneliness and dating anxiety. Especially if it's avatars who can also be a notorious judge of character, with their own racial and gender biases, who will never tell you who you might have missed, and out of nowhere. Can mislead something wild to say.
If anything, what might help the most is that bots can be a means, but not an end—along with the firm reassurance that there is, indeed, another human being. winking at you Emojis