San Francisco's artificial intelligence boom is changing how some residents approach dating. Some technology professionals are sharing their dating histories with ChatGPT to identify relationship patterns, using the chatbot to draft replies to potential partners and tracking matches in spreadsheets.
As the city's AI industry grows, some founders and engineers are applying the same data-driven thinking to finding a partner that they use to solve problems at work.
ChatGPT Is Becoming an Unofficial Dating Adviser
Some technology professionals are using AI to examine their romantic experiences and help them navigate conversations with potential partners. According to the reporting, some share their entire dating histories with ChatGPT and ask it to identify recurring patterns in their relationships. Others run replies to potential dates through chatbots such as ChatGPT before sending them.
Some are also connecting dating-app information to spreadsheets to monitor matches, while others focus on understanding how dating-app algorithms work. These examples show how some technology professionals are applying business-style analysis and AI tools to their personal lives.
When First Dates Become Job Interviews
For some AI professionals, finding love has become increasingly difficult to separate from their demanding careers. Mehul Agarwal, a 24-year-old co-founder of AI filmmaking startup Koyal, described a date that took two months to arrange. Both participants worked at AI startups and arrived exhausted, with their conversation resembling a networking meeting.
Agarwal wants to find a wife before becoming wealthy, hoping to avoid uncertainty over whether a future partner is attracted to his success. However, work commitments and travel have limited his opportunities to develop relationships.
Other experiences suggest that professional expectations are increasingly finding their way into romantic encounters. Amanda Chung, 25, who works at AI startup Nectar Social, described meeting a founder who could arrange a date only after 10 p.m. Another potential partner questioned her about her job and working style.
Sina Hartung, co-founder of Eureka Health, questioned the pressure to establish deeply personal details during initial meetings.
'You don't need to understand if they have cancer in their family; you don't need to understand on the first date if they really want three children,' she told The New York Times.
The Business of Finding Love
Dating coach Joyce Zhang, a former Stripe product manager, works exclusively with technology founders who approach finding a partner as a problem that can be solved through money and optimisation.
She uses business terminology such as 'top of funnel' to describe the pool of potential partners and examines how many connections eventually become dates.
Zhang charges $5,000 (£3,730) a month for her coaching services, according to the report. She uses the business language her clients understand, but also encourages them to trust their intuition rather than depend entirely on analysis.
AI Workers Have Little Time for Romance
The pressure to optimise dating also reflects the demanding schedules of San Francisco's technology workforce. Many AI startup employees follow the '996' working culture, which involves working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
Annalise Wulf, who helped organise an alternative dating event in San Francisco, said long startup hours leave little room for relationships to develop gradually.
'People in San Francisco, they work really hard, they have crazy long hours, especially in the startup culture,' Wulf told The New York Times.
Not everyone is turning to technology to address the problem. At Kilowatt, a bar in San Francisco's Mission neighbourhood, participants at a 'Date My Ex' event used short slide presentations to introduce potential partners to an audience. The gathering was part of a 'Date My Friend' series organised by Wulf and two friends as an alternative to dating apps.
Whether ChatGPT can help someone find a life partner remains an open question. Some people are asking the chatbot to review messages, examine their dating histories and identify recurring patterns. Whether those insights can translate into more successful relationships is another question. For some Silicon Valley professionals, even falling in love is becoming an exercise in data analysis and optimisation.
But finding the right person may remain one problem that technology cannot solve with an algorithm.
