Used, Misled, and Doubting What’s Real

[“Chatfishing” is quite the neologism.]
Online daters are using artificial intelligence to assist them, and boy howdy, outsourcing all human connection to ChatGPT doesn’t sound sociopathic at all. Nope, that‘s just a real time-saver.

ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. “Then it gave me some options for what the message could be,” says Rich. “Keep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency,” the bot advised. “Something like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you’ve got one] – good to meet you!”

“[S]till laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you’ve got one]”!1 What are we even doing here?

Footnotes:

“People need to know about the [CAN EAT MORE]”2 ↩︎

The relevant Futurama clip is archived here. ↩︎

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/oct/12/chatgpt-ed-into-bed-chatfishing-on-dating-apps