Dating writer Meg Schaltegger bravely tried out Photo AI for her dating profile pics to see if her dates noticed. And guess what? They, umm, didn't really.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00 When I showed my friends, they were like, "That's not you."
00:02 (record scratches)
00:03 Because they know me so well,
00:04 but he's not gonna know me at all, so I will report back.
00:08 (upbeat music)
00:10 - Hey guys, come on in.
00:14 I am a New York City writer.
00:16 I do a lot of dating and relationship content,
00:19 especially at Cosmo, but elsewhere too.
00:21 It's fun, I can't complain.
00:23 Other times, I am up 'til one in the morning
00:26 in my bed writing like a little goblin,
00:28 so it's glamorous until it's not.
00:30 In rom-com, there is always the happy ending,
00:33 and I think in real life dating,
00:35 there's a lot of heartbreaks and difficulties,
00:38 and I write about that.
00:39 I have gone on so many dates from different dating apps.
00:43 I've had successful dates,
00:45 and I've also had really bad experiences too.
00:47 Sometimes being on the dating app is a burning hellscape,
00:50 and sometimes it is fun.
00:51 I think it depends on the mood I'm in.
00:53 Sometimes it is fun to have a glass of wine
00:55 and swipe through, and sometimes you're swiping through
00:57 and you're like, no, no, no, no.
00:59 I am writing an article about my experience
01:03 using AI photos on my own hinge.
01:05 I'm going to use AI technology to place myself
01:09 in different scenarios and different places
01:11 and see if the men bring it up.
01:13 I'm gonna put myself in Paris or as a valedictorian.
01:17 I wanna do a couple that are a little outrageous
01:19 to see if it really sparks a conversation,
01:21 'cause I wanna know if they're looking.
01:22 I wanna know if they're gonna ask me questions about it,
01:26 and then I wanna see how I then handle it,
01:28 because I honestly have no idea what I'm gonna do
01:30 when someone asks me.
01:32 The program that I'm using,
01:33 I'm gonna input around 20 photos of myself,
01:36 and I believe it creates an actual avatar of me
01:39 that looks super realistic,
01:41 that I can put in different scenarios.
01:43 So I can create photos and experiences
01:45 that never actually happened.
01:47 Slap them up on my dating app,
01:48 and let's see if we can trick some men.
01:50 I'm just scrolling through my Instagram,
01:51 so I can try to find some photos
01:55 to throw in the AI program.
01:56 Maybe a closeup, think of my eyes.
02:00 So I think we're probably good on that.
02:05 I'm gonna start to create my AI characters.
02:09 So I'm gonna upload my photos.
02:10 It says that this will take 49 minutes,
02:12 and then you can start doing your first photo shoot
02:14 with your AI characters.
02:15 I had to put in my name, my gender, my age,
02:18 my eye color, my body type, my ethnicity.
02:22 I have to basically write a prompt now.
02:25 I am going to put my AI character
02:29 at a book signing as if I wrote a book.
02:31 Let's see if it looks anything like me.
02:33 It looks nothing like me.
02:37 I think the hair looks maybe the closest.
02:39 It's not giving me, that's not me.
02:43 She has blue eyes, I don't have blue eyes.
02:45 They all kinda look a little bit different too,
02:47 just ever so slightly.
02:49 And now I have no face in this AI.
02:51 Yeah, I don't love the dress that they chose for her.
02:53 And what is this necklace?
02:55 What is the dress and what is the necklace?
02:57 I would never.
02:58 I'm gonna have to potentially find new photos,
03:01 crop them perfectly, only so you see my face,
03:05 and then give it a go, and I'm really curious
03:07 to see if then it's gonna look like me.
03:09 I tossed them up there thinking it would totally
03:11 just figure out who I was if I wanted to look realistic,
03:14 which I do for the experiment.
03:15 It's gonna take me a while to actually make it look good
03:18 and look like me.
03:19 I think that some people are very into themselves
03:23 and maybe not going to really take the time
03:26 to look or ask the questions,
03:28 but I think someone that's actually worth dating,
03:31 they would ask the questions.
03:32 They'd be like, "Oh wow, you went here, you did this.
03:34 "Let's talk about it."
03:35 So it's almost kind of like a test.
03:38 Do they wanna know about my fake trip to Japan?
03:40 We're gonna see.
03:41 I'm going on this date with this guy.
03:44 We texted a little bit.
03:45 He hasn't brought up anything about my profile,
03:47 and I'm really curious to see if he will.
03:50 I have a photo of myself in front of the Eiffel Tower.
03:52 When I showed my friends, they were like,
03:54 "That's not you," because they know me so well,
03:56 but he's not gonna know me at all, so I will report back.
04:00 I admittedly don't really feel like going
04:02 on this date right now,
04:03 but I keep reminding myself that it's for science.
04:07 Okay, so I just got back.
04:08 It was a fine date.
04:09 Literally didn't ask me one thing about my profile.
04:11 Honestly, he didn't ask me a lot about myself in general.
04:13 He talked a lot.
04:14 I asked a lot of the questions, which I hate
04:16 when I feel like I have to carry the date,
04:18 and I feel like I didn't get any research out of it.
04:19 So another day, another date.
04:21 It was okay.
04:22 I even baited him a little in the beginning.
04:24 Obviously, I dyed my hair, so I look different
04:26 than in a lot of my dating app photos.
04:28 I was like, "Oh, you might not recognize me.
04:30 "I have dark hair now," and he's like,
04:31 "Oh, come on, you still look the same."
04:33 So didn't take the bait.
04:35 Didn't really ask me a lot about the photos
04:37 or even my prompts.
04:38 Do I think there's gonna be a second date?
04:40 No.
04:41 All right, y'all, today we are very excited and relieved
04:43 because the dating app experiment is over.
04:47 I really miss dating with my own face.
04:49 I don't know if moral of the story is that men are oblivious,
04:53 not to generalize, but at least the ones that I went out with
04:55 or they just don't care.
04:57 We're guys avoiding asking those questions
04:59 because they did think that my photos look fake.
05:01 I have a lot of questions.
05:02 I think it's going to educate the way
05:04 that I date moving forward.
05:05 I'm excited to date in a whole new way.
05:09 So wish me luck.
05:10 (upbeat music)
05:13 (upbeat music)
05:15 (upbeat music)
05:18 (upbeat music)
05:20 (upbeat music)
05:23 (upbeat music)