AI romance sealed in Macau waters

Happy ending after Moscow dev uses AI to ‘date’ 5,239 women

Alexander Zhadan (right) and Karina Imranovna

A Moscow-based developer claims to have used AI to “date” 5,239 women and eventually found true love.

A developer from Moscow has found his “happily ever after” after a self-reported year-long experiment using ChatGPT and other AI tools to date more than 5,000 women on Tinder.

In a Jan. 30 thread on X, TenChat product manager Alexander Zhadan announced he’s getting married in August to artificial intelligence (AI)-endorsed soulmate Karina Imranovna after whittling down 5,239 Tinder matches using an AI system he devised.

The proposal published by Zhadan on his X account

It filtered out women according to his red flags, made small talk on his behalf, booked dates and even helped him propose to his now-fiance.

In a 37-part thread in Russian, Zhadan revealed he started the experiment a year after his ex-girlfriend (who now claims they were just friends) ended their two-year relationship in 2021. Returning to dating, Zhadan said his Tinder relationships “went to a dead end” within weeks.

“I decided to simplify communication with girls via GPT.”

Zhadan began work after gaining access to the GPT-3 application programming interface, or API, in 2022, explaining it was initially a simple script that would “swipe right” to women with more than two photos on their profile.

However, after the release of ChatGPT in late November 2022, his system got an upgrade to “V2.”

This paired ChatGPT with photo recognition software that could filter out women whose profiles had zodiac signs, explicit photos and other personalized criteria.

Chat-up GPT

The upgrade also enabled his AI bot to sound more like him when talking to his Tinder matches.

“ChatGPT found better girls and chatted longer […] ChatGPT swiped to the right 353 profiles, 278 tags, he continued the dialogue with 160, I met with 12.”

However, the system sometimes promised his dates flowers or chocolates without his knowledge and occasionally double-booked him for dates.

Zhadan said he later improved this by integrating his system with Google Calendar and devised a feature that would seek his input on parts of a conversation ChatGPT had trouble responding to.

“This time there are 4943 matches per month on Tinder Gold and it’s scary to count how many meetings,” said Zhadan.

Eventually, Zhadan said he limited his interactions to just four women at a time and ended up getting on “serious terms” with just one: Karina.

A screenshot of the video taken while Alexander proposed to Karina on a Macau-HK ferry this week

This prompted Zhadan to build “V3,” aimed only at interacting with Karina — though he admits it was only used to serve as a stopgap if he didn’t respond for an extended period of time.

The experiment turned another corner in November 2023 after ChatGPT recommended Zhadan marry Karina based on a conversation with her and even helped devise a plan for him to propose during a trip to Macau and Hong Kong.

Колотило от ситуации.

Супер боялся, что может пойти что-то не так. Шёл почти точно по плану №3 и все подошло к моменту. Предлагаю жениться.

(The experiment with finding a girl reached an exorbitant result, which was difficult to remember and describe. I realized how difficult it is to communicate with people, maintain relationships and generally manage everything.)

— Aleksandr Zhadan (@biblikz) January 30, 2024

According to a screenshot of a marriage registration booking confirmation shared by Zhadan, the pair are set to get married on Aug. 3, 2024.

The groom-to-be once made the news after admitting to using OpenAI’s ChatGPT to write his entire university thesis in 2022 and was even allowed to keep his diploma.

“The development of the project took ~120 hours and $1,432 in API. Restaurant bills amount to 200 rubles […] If you met yourself and went on dates, then the same thing took 5+ years and 13m+ rubles. Thanks to ChatGPT for saving money and time,” said Zhadan.

Cointelegraph reached out to Zhadan for further comment but did not receive an immediate reply. Felix Ng, The Cointelegraph, Courtesy The Cointelegraph

Categories Arts & Culture Macau