Grindr is testing an AI 'wingman' bot, CEO says
Grindr, the most well-known gay dating app, is reportedly testing an AI bot that is designed to act as a wingman for its users.
Grindr's AI wingman will be specifically tailored for the app's LGBTQ user base, the Wall Street Journal reported. Users will interact with the wingman like a chatbot. Currently, a small group of users is testing the feature, Grindr's CEO George Arison said in an interview with WSJ. The group will expand to 1,000 users by the end of 2024 and 10,000 in 2025. The plan is for the chatbot to be available to Grindr's 14 million users by 2027 at the latest, Arison told WSJ.
The wingman will apparently keep track of users' favorite matches and make suggestions ranging from long-term relationship candidates to date spots. Later on, the wingman may be able to make restaurant reservations and converse with other wingman bots so users have a "robust view" of each other by the time they meet in person, WSJ reported.
The Wall Street Journal listed some preliminary issues with this idea. For one, Grindr needs to ensure this won't be a privacy and safety risk in areas where it isn't safe to be outwardly gay. Furthermore, Grindr sold user location data through ad networks for years, and AI data could pose another privacy risk.
WSJ claims a solution will be an "empathetic AI technology" through AI model company Ex-human, which Grindr made a deal with last year. The model Ex-human creates will be trained on romantic conversation and made "more gay." It's unclear how these models will solve these potential privacy concerns. Grindr is also in a lawsuit in the UK about revealing users' HIV status.
Besides these possible issues, Grindr users are currently frustrated with the app due to growing product issues and paywalls. In a statement to Mashable earlier this month concerning this frustration, a Grindr spokesperson said, "Since a major investment in modernizing our chat platform earlier this year, we are aware that our users have experienced technical challenges on Grindr."
It remains to be seen, then, how the app's infrastructure will contend with the introduction of a chatbot, and also how Grindr users will react to it. When Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd described a potential "AI dating concierge" in an interview in May, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Considering that Grindr is known for quick hookups — VICE described it as a "24/7 merry-go-round of sex in your immediate locale" in 2022 — users may not want an AI bot intervening with their carnival ride.
Mashable has reached out to Grindr for comment on the AI wingman.