I used AI to boost my dating app pics – I loved how easy it was to use, but it made me a total catfish
ARTIFICIAL intelligence has maneuvered its way into almost every facet of modern life.
I tried a website that promised to enhance the photos on my online dating profile, but the results were not what I expected.
Previously, I used Chat GPT to improve my Hinge profile and help create my prompts, which luckily got me a date.
I even tried to make conversation online with other people I thought were on my so-called hotness scale through a new website called Hot Chat 3000.
Now, instead of using artificial intelligence to spruce up my words, I thought I’d let it subtly tweak my photos using a new online technology called Photo AI.
Photo AI is the world’s first online software of its kind, designed to help users stand out from the crowd and make a memorable first impression.
Pieter Levels created Photo AI as a solo founder with no team and with zero funding.
The founder promises it will “create unique selfies for dating apps that users won’t be able to distinguish from the real thing.”
He added: “I wanted to empower users by providing them with an innovative tool that harnesses the power of AI to generate stunning images effortlessly.”
The idea of getting gorgeous photos at the click of a button (as opposed to editing manually) was enticing, but how true was this?
But I didn’t want to catfish, knowing it’s always a bummer when a date looks nothing like their pictures.
A pro of the tool is it’s definitely easy to use.
It allows you to create hundreds of images for your dating profiles from the comfort of your own home in the Synthetic Photo Studio.
First, simply upload multiple images of your chosen subject to train the AI model, which I named Geena.
I added 20 images that ranged in style, pose, and background.
The more images added at this stage, the better to ensure that your photos look as realistic as possible.
It took about an hour for Photo AI to generate my model before I was able to actually use them.
What was cool about the tech tool was that it gave you the option to pick your eye color, body type, age, and identity.
Then, choose the number of photos you want to take and type in the prompt.
You can ask the AI to generate photos of you in a specific travel destination, doing a specific pose, and even the style of the photo itself, which made the possibilities seem almost endless.
It also gives you the option to add negative prompts, which means things that you specifically don’t want to see.
For me, I made sure to write “remove wrinkles” because I wanted a smooth look all around, from my face to my clothing.
On top of that, you can adjust the prompt strength from light to extreme, which gives the software an indicator of how strictly to stick to the prompt guidelines.
With each prompt, I requested four images.
My first was “full body portrait of model with long hair, in dress, young woman, elegant.”
Below are the images that were generated.
I was surprised that the images truly did not look like me.
They were lifelike and realistic, but, unfortunately, they did not share as many facial similarities as I had hoped.
For another prompt, I described “full body, wearing an elegant dress, sitting down, short hair, arms visible, jewelry.”
The photo that was developed looked more like me than the one above, but I still didn’t feel comfortable that it was my face.
I entered prompts to generate photos of myself in a variety of scenarios like on the beach, at the gym, and as a bride.
I added a few of the images to my existing Hinge profile and kept them up for five days to see if people could tell the difference.
Unfortunately, no one called them out on my profile.
I did ask some of my coworkers what they thought and there were some interesting opinions.
One said that they were simply “wild,” while another said the girl looked like my cousin.
Another told me that from far away they couldn’t tell they weren’t me but upon a closer look the differences were distinguishable.
In the end, I love the concept of the Photo AI software, but the facial recognition feature might need some additional work.
I’d initially planned to reel in a date with my revved-up photos, but I couldn’t bring myself to use them properly – as I would have totally been catfishing.