Common sense should be enough to not fall into the temptation of improving ourselves with artificial intelligence to appear more attractive… Obviously, this is not the best of ideas. But it is no longer just for catfishing (lying to other people about our real identity when dating on apps), but to commit fraud, scammers are also very interested in being able to sneak AI-created portraits into dating apps. For all this, one of the star apps in this field, Bumble, has introduced a new function to help its users combat this scourge.
While Bumble introduced the AI-powered Deception Detector tool last February to automatically detect fraudulent, fake or spam profiles, the company has recently implemented another feature that follows the same path. From now on, users can report other profiles themselves if they suspect that photos have been generated by artificial intelligence. The user simply has to follow the pre-established route to report a profile and, in the list of reasons, select ‘Fake profile’ and then ‘Uses AI-generated photos or videos’.
Other reasons why a profile can be reported on the platform include inappropriate content, underage users, scams, and the use of other people’s photos.
According to Bumble, an app with more than 50 million downloads on the Play Store, since the introduction of Deception Detector, the number of fake or spam profiles reported by its users has decreased by 45%. With the new reporting function, Bumble is looking to complement this existing system with the help of users themselves.
Back in February, Bloomberg reported that scammers are indeed using AI to make fake profiles on dating apps like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble look more realistic. Contacts made on these apps would serve as candidates to be manipulated and guided towards fraudulent cryptocurrency investment apps or other scams.
More than ever, the saying that if it seems too good, it probably isn’t true also applies to dating apps.
AI yes, but for other things
This fraudulent use of artificial intelligence is at odds with the optimism of Whitney Wolfe, the founder of the app, regarding this technological tool. A few weeks ago, some of Wolfe’s statements regarding the possible use of AI in the dating industry went viral.
According to the entrepreneur, the future of online dating involves generating AI versions of ourselves so that they can go on dates with each other, looking for the suitor who is most likely to appeal to us. Once this automated preliminary selection is made, we could go on arranged dates with AIs to meet someone who has previously passed this filter. Of course, it would save time, although again, it would add another layer of artificiality to the task of finding a partner.
