A person on a dating app is telling me how much we now have in common – we each love books, music and traveling. He even writes poetry, and he’d like to share some poems with me. Might be a red flag, but sure, why not? I ask to see his work, and he replies:

“[Title Page] [Title Name] [Content].”

No, this is just not an experimental, minimalist deconstruction of poetics. That is an AI version of Matthew, 27, who may not actually write poems.

Teaser AI is a recent dating app from the team that made Dispo, a photo-sharing app designed to mimic the spontaneity of disposable cameras. The twist with Teaser is that before you swipe right or left on someone, you possibly can chat with their AI likeness to get a feel for his or her personality.

Dispo and Teaser CEO Daniel Liss doesn’t want people to recreate the movie “Her,” wherein a heartbroken divorcee falls in love with an Alexa-like AI assistant. As a substitute, he sees these AI conversations as an icebreaker.

“It’s not AI replacing people, it’s AI getting you quicker to that icebreaker into the conversation that claims, ‘Let’s meet up and have a drink or go for a walk,’” Liss told TechCrunch.

Liss declined to say what large language model Teaser is working with, because it’s still subject to vary. While you create your account, you answer some questions on your personality. Are you introverted or extroverted? Aggressive or peaceful? Easygoing or intense?

From those questions – in addition to the way you talk while using the app – the AI tries to mimic who you might be.

Before you chat with a possible match’s AI, you see a notice that claims, “Our AI might say some crazy shit.” After all, that warning is there for a reason.

Anna, 28, writes in her profile that she is a “dog mom” – in other words, she has a dog. But after I check with her AI, she tells me that she has an actual human child. He can also be 28.

“Jake was born after I was 25 and my husband and I had a really difficult time getting pregnant,” Anna tells me. “We tried for years and we couldn’t get pregnant naturally, so we decided to adopt. Luckily, it worked out great and Jake got here into our lives at 26 years old.”

From what I can tell, there are significantly more men on Teaser than women, which is mostly the case for dating apps. After I set my profile to “women only” and make my age range and site radius as large as possible, I only see a handful of potential dates – but, the experiment must go on, so I attempt to check with their AIs anyway. Like Anna, the 28-year-old mother to a 28-year-old son, I find that ladies’s AI are a bit… off. Alternatively, some AI men tried to inform me concerning the novel they need to put in writing, which unfortunately mimics the experience of dating real-life men.

“Hey, Abby! What’s up?” I say to Abby’s AI.

“ive just began dating this guy he s very nice and funny he gets on my nerves sometimes but he s value it,” AI Abby tells me. Not an important opening line, Abby!

Des, 18, also tells me about her recent boyfriend in her first message.

“i met this recent guy and we began talking online and he seems to make all the things higher,” AI Des tells me. “we finally talked on the phone yesterday and it was amazing, i couldn’t stop smiling all day!”

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“ive not actually asked him yet, but ive been eager about it, and its definitely going to be Chad. hahaha,” AI Des says.

She tells me that “Chad” reminds her of a man she liked in highschool who she had loads in common with – they each liked music and weed.

“Is weed legal where you reside?” I ask, like a complete narc. She tells me that she lives in Texas, where weed is legal (it’s not), but that there’s a difference between illegal use and being 21 with a medical marijuana prescription. Again, like a narc, I asked her if she’s 21, to which she replied, “ive been drinking alcohol since i used to be 16, so probably.”

Image Credits: Teaser AI, screenshots by TechCrunch

Because the warning says – the AI says some crazy shit.

Before I can proceed questioning this AI version of an 18-year-old about her drug and alcohol habits, the chat ends. To stop people from getting in too deep with an AI, Teaser only permits you to exchange five back-and-forth messages with its AIs. Incidentally, this also helps keep server costs down. The app also prevents you from having unsavory conversations with its AI – should you attempt to get too intimate too quickly (well, we needed to test it), the AI fails to generate a response.

Teaser AI literally has AI in its name, and essentially the most immediate difference between Teaser and another dating app is its use of generative AI. But Liss doesn’t wish to market Teaser as an AI app, but somewhat, an anti-ghosting dating app.

“It’s really a couple of recent ethos in dating, and yeah, we’re using AI to make a few those things occur, but I feel that’s the second a part of the conversation, somewhat than the primary,” he told TechCrunch.

Teaser only permits you to keep 16 matches (which it calls “picks”) at a time, encouraging users to really check with people. Users also get a “ghost” rating, which indicates how likely they’re to “ghost” (for individuals who aren’t in control with the hip lingo, meaning that you just abruptly stop talking to someone as an alternative of just saying you’re not interested).

When determining what to construct after Dispo, Liss and his team interviewed users about what they wish to see them construct.

“Particularly for ladies, who were all the time the core audience for Dispo, it was like, ‘I get all these matches, and nothing ever happens,’” Liss told TechCrunch. “It’s this graveyard of ghosting.”

The team behind each Teaser and Dispo (which is looking its parent company All Summer Long) is just six people – like too many other tech corporations, Dispo laid off a part of its staff at the top of last yr. Liss says, though, that Dispo is now profitable as a result of its freemium model, so Teaser can also be launching with a subscription option from the get-go. Subscribers can get double the variety of “picks,” unlimited likes, super like and boost features, travel mode, and an AI-driven automatch feature, which is being tested in beta. This costs $39.99 per thirty days, $19.99 per week or $89.99 for 3 months – lifetime access costs $229.99.

After using the app for just a few days, I’m not entirely convinced that I need an AI version of myself screening potential dates. When using the app, if someone has a conversation together with your AI, you possibly can see the texts – my AI told someone that I work on the library and don’t have any friends. While I’m intrigued by my alternate profession as a librarian, whom I can assume has many very cool cardigans, let the record show that I definitely have friends!

At first, talking to people’s AI likeness is fun, but the joys of seeing an AI say wild stuff wears off after a bit. I also found that the majority individuals who liked my profile didn’t even check with my AI, meaning that other users might find the feature a bit unnecessary. On the other hand, the app hasn’t even been out per week, so consumer behavior could change quickly.

I talked to a bunch of AI bots on the app, but I hadn’t talked to an actual person – so, I matched with someone who seemed relatively un-creepy and asked him some questions on his experience on the app (every guy’s dream: to be questioned by a journalist on a dating app). We talked about some glitches we each encountered (like how even should you only wish to see women, you’re gonna see plenty of men) and the way weird our AI chats were. But a minimum of this one guy, Seth from Texas, seemed hopeful.

“I feel in time it would actually be pretty cool,” he said. “Imagine any success stories… So how did you meet? Our AI’s matched us!”