How about you? Have you incorporated AI into your dating life? Send me a voice mail or email here.
Ideal Match/Iris Dating founder Igor Khalatian
Emmay with a fellow cycling enthusiast.
Transcript
This is “Dating While Gray: The Grown-Up’s Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships.” I’m Laura Stassi. And I’ve been avoiding exploring how artificial intelligence can help with romance seeking.
Until now, that is. Coming up, “A Little Love Help from My AI Friend.”
Here’s a confession. When I’m sitting at my desk and supposed to be writing … my mind sometimes wanders. To things like … my favorite 1980s primetime soap opera. And then I start wondering, who was that actor who played that guy with a drinking problem who cheated on his wife?
So then I type into the Google search bar, “Knott’s Landing cast of characters.” And voila, photos and names pop up … and I find the answer to my question. Ted Shackelford, now 78 years old. The character’s name was Gary, now I remember.
So this example may not be the most significant question I’ve posed to AI. But frankly it’s the kind of interaction I feel most comfortable with. Personally, when it comes to AI, I want to keep some guardrails up.
Of course, I know AI is used on the dating platforms. Typically, in the form of algorithms that analyze our preferences and activity so they can suggest appropriate matches. In fact, dating coaches often advise us to switch up our online photos, and increase our swiping and mate searching, to kind of spur on the algorithm to regularly offer us fresh options.
Recently, I got a press release about a relatively new app called Iris Dating. It uses AI to determine who we find attractive, and then sends us real-life options. So my first thought was that AI was somehow looking into our eyes – you know, how the iris responds to attraction by causing our pupils to dilate. Turns out, that’s not what they’re doing. I called the founder to learn more.
IGOR KHALATIAN
Igor Khalatian, founder of Ideal Match.
LAURA STASSI
It’s Ideal Match?
IGOR KHALATIAN The company is called Ideal Match. The product is Iris Dating.
LAURA STASSI
And what prompted you to explore AI as a dating business model?
IGOR KHALATIAN
Well, you know, unlike maybe many people who recently just woke up on the power AI and said to themselves, Oh my God, let me jump on that bandwagon, I’m interested in that for last 20 years. This was my passion, you know. And I was always interested in in the way brain works, and especially when it comes to attraction. And so we started this in 2019, way before anybody was talking about AI in a large scale.
LAURA STASSI
I looked at the video, and it says there are three types of attraction: lust, attachment and true attraction. And Iris Dating is operating on the premise that a successful relationship starts with true attraction, not necessarily that attraction can grow. Is that correct?
IGOR KHALATIAN
Attraction can always grow you. But typically what happens, you see somebody you are attracted to, and then you want to explore more about that person. Now, strong attraction is extremely rare, especially strong mutual attractions – it’s one in a million, mathematically speaking. So a lot of people tell themselves that it’s a fantasy, it’s not achievable, and therefore you have to learn to appreciate other things. So for women, for example, they may not be attracted to a man in terms of true attraction or facial attraction, but they will tell them to themselves, well, he has a good sense of humor. You know, he’s, he’s a good person. Some will say he’s financially stable. So support our children. Is that attraction? It’s, it’s a compatibility, right?
LAURA STASSI Okay.
IGOR KHALATIAN That’s a compatibility type of attraction. It’s not true attraction. However, it’s a sensitive subject, because it’s tough reality to admit even to yourself, right?
LAURA STASSI Sure.
IGOR KHALATIAN But you compromised a little bit along the way there.
LAURA STASSI Mm-hmm. Let’s say I wanted to sign up. How does, how do I teach AI what I’m attracted to, physically?
IGOR KHALATIAN So after you go through the basic registration, it will show you series of stock photos. And your job is, will be to say, to rate them, basically, to say, I don’t like them or and so you give a, give it pass, or you give it a maybe, if the person is okay, but not does not take your breath away. And then you give it a like if attraction is strong. So, there will be three phases of that training. Phase oe will just show you random photos you go through the process. In phase two, after you rate approximately 10, 15 photos, you’ll notice a difference. You start noticing that you seek more and more attractive people. And the reason this is happening because AI starts to understand your type and suggest more people of your type. This as simple as that. By the end of the process, AI knows your type.
LAURA STASSI
And then Iris Dating shows me actual people based on what they’ve decided is my type or what I’ve trained AI as my type. Is that right?
IGOR KHALATIAN Correct, correct. And also, what’s especially, I would say amazing, because everybody goes through the same process of training. We know everybody’s taste. So Iris can also not just find your type, but also check if the person is attracted to you as well.
LAURA STASSI So it’s like a mutual connection.
IGOR KHALATIAN
Mutual. Which is extremely rare. In real life, it’s impossible, basically. If it’s something, probability of something is one in a million. You can say it’s possible same way you can say that it’s possible to win the lottery. You know, nobody will dispute that. We’ve seen those cases. But same level of probability. So Iris is the one who is changing those odds, and because it can scan people automatically. If you try to scan, you know, a million people, it will take you 30 years. If you do it you know 100 people a day.
LAURA STASSI
Sure, and does it work for older people? I mean, I’m thinking I could see this as an interesting experiment for, you know, people under 30.
IGOR KHALATIAN Why would you think that for age 50 and older, anything is different, like anything when it comes to date. I think you’re putting some barrier in front of you, but it does not exist in nature,
LAURA STASSI
Well, probably. I’ve just done this show for many years now, and I’ve heard from a lot of older dater. And a lot of us are saying what we’re attracted to has changed over time, and it’s not just a visceral, physical attraction anymore, and that it’s really difficult to look at a picture and decide whether that’s somebody that we would want to go out with.
IGOR KHALATIAN Not true. Science does not support that. You know, 100-year-old person and 16-year-old person have the same type which stays with them because it’s in their DNA. It comes from our ancestors, whom they’ve chosen as a partner, which climate they lived in, etc. We have our own specific type and so and that does not change. If you see a person of your type which matches your type very strongly, your brain will release those chemicals.
Now, regarding sexual attraction, things may change a bit. You know when, when you are 100, because it has to do with estrogen and testosterone, but in terms of dopamine, serotonin. Is that the facial attraction or the fruit attraction, nothing changes. Now if this person is gorgeous. Now, my heart is beating. Now, what you gonna do about it when you 20, as opposed to 90s? Could be different strategies there. But what I’m indicating is that the attraction is there.
LAURA STASSI I am assuming it wants to know if I’m interested in women or men, and is it interested in what age group I’m looking for and geographic location?
IGOR KHALATIAN
It’s a great question. Yes, it wants to know if you’re looking for men or women and we do ask what age group you’re looking for. We recommend that when you put the bracket, do not put it small. Like, for example, some older people will say, I’m 60, therefore, you know, it’s not appropriate for me to search for 18 to whatever, right? It’s societal norms and things like that. After Iris finds you real people, you can put age brackets there, and only date specific age brackets. But do not restrict yourself when, when AI is trying to determine your type, because you will be shooting yourself in the foot a little bit.
LAURA STASSI
Tech entrepreneur and Iris founder Igor Khalatian. He recommends app users not put in age restrictions, but to see where quote, true attraction leads you. He says their approach helps ensure everyone on the site is who they say they are – no catfishers. And, Igor says there are 4 million users worldwide — and growing. That’s compared to about 15 million users worldwide on the Match Group apps.
So if we’re going on physical attraction alone, I suppose it might not hurt to have AI help me figure out or confirm my type. But what about using AI to strike up conversations and go on dates? I read a New York Times article about a reporter who basically created and trained an AI clone of himself. And then his clone had online conversations with other clones, and with real people, to narrow down his list of potential dating partners.
OK, this is way out of my comfort zone. But as one gray dater tells me, I shouldn’t necessarily shun all personal, dating-related use of AI. Tell you more, after a brief break.
BREAK
LAURA STASSI
We’re back with Dating While Gray and “A Little Love Help From My AI Friend.” I’m Laura Stassi. And it seems like lately, every time I set out to write the e-newsletter or a Linked In post, I get a prompt asking if I want help from AI. Call me overdramatic, maybe even paranoid, but I find this suggestion outrageous. I’m a writer, for heaven’s sake. I don’t want or need robotic help.
But then, when I calm down, I remember that I consider myself open-minded, and capable of change. So that’s why, when I heard about a woman we’re calling Emmay, I wanted to talk.
Emmay is in her early 60s, has been married once and divorced for almost 15 years now. She is very comfortable with technology, unlike me.
EMMAY
I will say number one, we’re around the same age, and I don’t have very many friends who don’t feel the way you do. I think it can be a very intimidating and the hyperbole you’re hearing about it, and there’s a lot of fear around it, just like when you look back when the Internet first was discovered and launched, people had a lot of fears about that technology as much as we’re having around AI. But that putting that on the back burner. I very much was an early adopter of AI, and as soon as it came out, I immediately tried to sign up for the free version of it and was on a wait list for short amount of time. But I’ve been using it, I would say, close to two years now. I should keep count one day just how many times a day I get on ChatGPT or CoPilot because Laura, those are specifically the only two that I use.
And Microsoft’s CoPilot is an AI assistant, just like Siri on your phone. It’s the same sort of technology. The more you use it, you know, it’s machine learning. So it gets better and better and better and better. And then I also use chat GPT, which is another AI tool, but it’s more conversational.
At first, I would never have thought of using them for dating online.
LAURA STASSI
So how were you using them?
EMMAY You know, find me the best flight to LA, any question that came up. When I had surgery, what’s the normal course of surgery for blah, blah, blah. You know, I was doing online dating at this point, and a gentleman wanted to get on a call. And my philosophy, which might be different than yours, is that I’m not into a call when we live so close. My philosophy is, let’s just meet in person. A lot of time people aren’t good on the phone. Now, we’ve all gotten away from talking on the phone, right, because of texting, so that was my preference. But I didn’t know how to quite say that without sounding rigid or odd or just unusual. So I got on CoPilot, and I said, make this sound more flirtatious and inviting. And I wrote exactly what I would have written in the text. And darn if it didn’t like really sound much more flirtatious, and it wasn’t off putting, like the words and the in the way in which I would have spun it was not nearly as inviting as CoPilot did for me. And that’s when I really thought, wow, like, there’s a business in this of like, teaching people CoPilot and chat GPT and how to use it for online dating.
LAURA STASSI I think it’s funny that your mind immediately went to, this is a business, rather than, oh, I can be more successful in online dating.
EMMAY
Over time. Then I realized how much more I could be, how much more successful I could be. But I also don’t want to say that this goes on and on and on. I only use it a handful of times before I say, look, let’s meet in person, or let’s video chat, or whatever. I don’t keep it in this sort of, if you will, seduction process for long. That’s not exactly the right tempo, but friends have asked me, do I feel deceptive? And I said, No, I really don’t feel deceptive. Because it’s not this is two months’ worth of me using AI to finally meet somebody in person. It just does. It just makes up for I feel like some blind spots around who I am, interpersonally.
LAURA STASSI Do you have an example of something that you wrote that then you like the way it sounded better that you’re willing to share?
EMMAY
Okay, so I, I will share this one because I just gave the example. Let me tell you what CoPilot wrote for me.
LAURA STASSI
Okay.
EMMAY … when I went in and asked it to sound more flirty and inviting, but that I really didn’t necessarily, you know, want to talk by phone when he’s three miles away from where I live. So this was the response when I asked it that. And CoPilot said, Hello, I must confess, I find the allure of meeting in person far more tantalizing than the rigidity of video calls or phone calls. There’s an electric chemistry that sparks when our eyes look across a room. Don’t you think, question mark, Let’s bypass the digital formalities and dive into the unscripted magic of face-to- face encounters. What do you say? Wink, wink.
LAURA STASSI Can I see that for a second?
EMMAY Yep.
LAURA STASSI Allure of meeting, okay, tantalizing, the rigidity of video calls, electric chemistry, which is kind of redundant, and I think it’s interesting because they they’re suggesting you use a winky face emoji. And is that a second winky face emoji, or is that – I can’t tell whether that’s supposed to be …
EMMAY I really don’t know what that is, maybe a star?
LAURA STASSI And I’m assuming the fact that you wanted to use AI to write that, you do not normally feel comfortable with writing?
EMMAY
I mean, I studied radio journalism, actually. So no, I do feel comfortable writing, but I will tell you that studying radio journalism made me write in a very, um, condensed way, and that Laura has what’s gotten me into not trouble, but it’s not gotten me the result I want, because I was taught to write like a radio journalist.
LAURA STASSI Succinct and …
EMMAY Yes, yes, the opposite of what I just read you. No, Laura, let me tell you, I don’t take this and cut and paste it and put it like I make it. I do have to edit –
LAURA STASSI
Massage a little bit.
EMMAY For sure. I mean their words are a, you’re right. Electric chemistry. Come on, you know, like, No, I, but it does give me a better place to start.
I mean, you have to look at it, you have to massage it, make it more of my own voice. But again, if you’re not great at the art of flirtation, then this is at least a helping hand. And that’s what I think online dating becomes, is people get so stuck because something’s not right in the tempo, or they’re great communicators in person but they’re not as effective online or whatever, or they’re too brainy, and they don’t know how to flirt, but if you got to the stage of meeting, you might really have chemistry. It’s just another tool, but I think it’s a worthwhile tool because it gives you, again, a place to start when your mind is fixed on the way you write to begin with.
LAURA STASSI Have you used them in writing a profile?
EMMAY Right before you came, I just went in out of curiosity and asked it to write me a profile. And if you want, I can read it for you.
LAURA STASSI
I would love you to read it. Yes.
EMMAY
So about me: Outdoor enthusiast who feels most at home on a gravel, bike trail — or exploring new hiking routes. By day, I’m a consultant. By night, I’m dreaming of life in Europe, great coffee and finding a partner who’s up for a healthy, adventurous lifestyle. If you love the idea of chasing sunsets, discovering hidden gems, or just having great conversations, let’s connect.
LAURA STASSI
Okay, that’s good. I have to say, I think that’s really good.
EMMAY It is exactly me. That was with no prompt. But remember, I’ve been asking it for almost two years, like I’m a huge gravel biker and I’m a huge outdoor enthusiast. So it knows me well enough to know that that would be important in a partner.
LAURA STASSI
I like, too, the way it’s structured. It is succinct.
EMMAY It is.
LAURA STASSI
But it’s the words they’re using not only represent you, but they are also intriguing for me as the listener, or if I were the reader, it would be intriguing. So I would have to say, Okay, that’s good.
EMMAY Mm-hmm. The only thing I will say about that, this is a very narrow scope of male right? Like what I just read you, if you aren’t athletic, if you aren’t into dreaming of Europe, it would be too limiting, in my opinion, for an online profile. It’s not broad enough.
LAURA STASSI Going back to the flirtatious one, how was it when you met face to face? Was it awkward in any way?
EMMAY
Oh, I mean, I’ve done this several times, so there’s not like one story to reference right here, but I’m socially, much better in person, and I can be a bit more flirtatious. Again, that is not in my writing style. So generally, I would say that using AI has gotten me to the next step in this, you know, in the process or the spectrum of dating, let’s say.
LAURA STASSI
Yeah.
EMMAY But yeah, my preference is not to talk on the phone. It’s to either, you know, video, if we’re not geographically close, but if we’re close, I’m not going to spend a lot of time continuing along that that process.
LAURA STASSI
Okay, so be honest, because we’re not using your real name. Have you ever on a video chat, had your phone somewhere hidden and said just a minute?
EMMAY
No no, because I think I am better live.
LAURA STASSI
Okay, so expressing yourself is easier even when it’s just in the moment, as opposed to putting it down on paper or typing it out and …
EMMAY
Yes and again, because I studied radio journalism, you know, a lot of my consulting is social media, which, again, short, crisp, concise, you can’t hold people’s attention for long. That’s a driving force throughout my career, is writing like that, which has served me well, but not in this milieu, you know. It writes more solicitous than I could ever. You know, at a certain age, you know yourself, and you know your strengths and weaknesses, and you know there is a way again in which I write that is just, it’s too …
LAURA STASSI
I think I know you mean because I always pride myself. I’m like, I’m not only open, but I feel like I’m really direct. And I feel like sometimes that directness can be off-putting.
EMMAY
Thank you. That’s the word I was looking for. It’s too direct, yeah, you know or, like a guy friend of mine always says, you know, keep it light, don’t, don’t go heavy, right up, light, light, light.
LAURA STASSI
And to be clear, you’re using it on the regular dating sites. Because I have been approached by people who have these dating sites where the bots date.
EMMAY
It’s not chat bot. No. I want to be clear. That’s not what I’m doing at all. The more I learn about that, the more it scares me, or just not – scare’s too strong a word, but I am not interested in that.
LAURA STASSI
And you use your own pictures, you don’t use avatars.
EMMAY
No, I don’t. This is not deceptive. It is. It is a way to show, a way to allure that I am not able to do. It
LAURA STASSI
It’s like, if you have a broken leg, you put a cast on it. I mean, that’s very, very simplistic, right? But you’re using it as a crutch or, right? But you’re using it to help you.
EMMAY
Again, if you said to me, How many times do I use it before I meet with somebody? Maybe three times. I wouldn’t even know if it’s three because I think, for me, in the way in which I am and who I am intra personally, is that either we’re gonna meet or we’re not gonna meet, and if it doesn’t happen by a certain tempo, I’m not interested. I don’t, I’m not. I’ve got a million friends. I don’t need this to go on and on and on, but again, that’s where AI can help me get to that goal quicker.
LAURA STASSI
Right. I’m just wondering if somebody’s ever said to you something along the lines of, wow, you express yourself so much better. I can really relate to you so much better when we’re conversing by the written word as opposed to talking face to face.
EMMAY
I mean, I’m sure people that are listening to this podcast have been in contact with people who write beautifully, and they get face to face and they’re not great. I think both can happen for people.
LAURA STASSI
You know how when you get a new car and you think it’s really different – but then every time you’re out driving, you see another car just like yours? That’s how I felt while scripting this episode. I read about one of my local wine shops that’s scheduled to be featured in a Super Bowl commercial. The owners talk about using AI to write their newsletters. And before that, my favorite guilty pleasure listening – “The Elliot in the Morning Radio Show” – had a caller who described using Chat GPT on dating apps. He said it helps him keep track of who’s who – since he can be talking to maybe seven women at a time. But he’s great face to face because he quote, knows how to woo a lady.
My mind may be open – but that doesn’t mean I’m changing my habits. So if you think I’m going to end this episode by asking AI to come up with a good closer, Nope. It ain’t happenin.
I’ll just borrow some of Emmay’s ChatGPT lingo and say, I hope we all find the electric chemistry we desire — on or own, or with some artificial help.
END CREDITS
Dating While Gray’s audio production and mix is by Steve Lack: Audio. Theme music by D. Peterschmidt. Please like and follow Dating While Gray wherever you get podcasts. That way, you’ll never miss an episode. And, if you’re so inclined, leave a review letting everyone know what you love about us. For more on the show, check out datingwhilegray.com. That’s where you can find Bonus Content, along with links to send me questions, comments, tips, and true stories – through email and voice mail. You know I love hearing from you. You can also sign up for the free Dating While Gray e-newsletter, delivered most Fridays to your inbox. Again, that’s all at datingwhilegray.com. I’m Laura Stassi. Thanks so much for listening.
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