Up to two hours a day. This is the average time users spend flirting online with virtual partners. A figure that photographs a silent reversal in human relationships, where artificial intelligence plays an increasingly intimate role. How are we doing?
A growing phenomenon
In 2013, Spike jonze told us in “Her” the story of a man who falls in love with an operating system. At the time we were amused, fascinated and a little worried. And today? With 676.000 daily active users on Replica, that vision appears almost prophetic.
And it's not just a question of numbers. It's the symptom of a profound change in the way we conceive interpersonal relationships, in an era in which dating apps have already transformed courtship into an (increasingly sterile) mechanism. swipe left or right.
Research data
WorldNetwork, the project futuristic of Sam altman, conducted a survey of 90.000 of its 25 million users. The results are surprising: 26% of respondents believe they flirt online with a chatbot, knowingly or not.
“As a dating app user, I get scammed all the time,” she confesses. Tiago Sada, chief product officer of Tools for Humanity. “You see profiles that are too good to be true. Or you notice that this person has six fingers. Why do they have six fingers? It turns out it’s AI.”
The Digital Dating Generation
The situation becomes even more complex if we consider the current social context. The generation that grew up with Tinder and other dating apps already shows difficulties in face-to-face interactions. If we add the fact that many of their online interlocutors may not even be real, the picture becomes worrying.
If nothing else, 90% of surveyed users are calling for identity verification systems on dating apps. To address this challenge, WorldNetwork He developed World ID Deep Face, a system that uses iris scanning to verify the identity of users on platforms such as Google Meet, Zoom or dating apps.
But the real questions are two. First: are technological solutions enough for a problem that is fundamentally social and psychological? Second: are we sure that the proposed solution (iris scanning with “filing” attached) is the most ethical and respectful of privacy? The answers are yours.
Flirting Online With… No One. Psychological Implications
The appeal of romantic chatbots is understandable. They are always available, non-judgmental, and respond exactly as we would like. But this very “perfection” may make it even harder to deal with the imperfections of real relationships.
Just as the Tinder generation developed an aversion to rejection thanks to the ability to weed out potential partners with a simple swipe, the romance chatbot generation is at risk of developing unrealistic expectations about relationships.
Because, if it wasn't clear, in Jonze's film the protagonist was aware of interacting with an AI: in reality even this certainty is missing, and this makes all the difference in the world, raising significant ethical questions.
The paradox of connection
In an age where we are theoretically more connected than ever, we seek intimacy in algorithms and codes. And we are at the point that, perhaps, when we do not seek them, they seek us. It is a paradox that perhaps reflects not so much the limits of technology, but those of our ability to manage authentic relationships in an increasingly digital world.
The real challenge will not be distinguishing between bots and humans, but remembering the irreplaceable value of authentic connections. Even if imperfect, even if complicated, even if they require more than a simple swipe or a well-formulated prompt.
