Alexander Zhadan, a young man from Moscow, built a ChatGPT powered dating assistant to explore dating and conversation with women. Over a year, the neural network reportedly interacted with thousands of potential matches and even sparked a marriage proposal to one of them. This is the account Zhadan shared on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Zhadan launched the project in 2022, initially leveraging the Tinder platform and the GPT-3 language model. The objective was clear: have the bot approach a woman and invite her out, but not immediately. According to Zhadan, the first version produced dialogue that felt artificial, often losing track of context and suggesting a meetup too soon after the initial contact.
In subsequent iterations, the project was redesigned to run on the more capable GPT-4 model. The updated system generated more natural, humanlike responses and learned to flag messages that might come across as overconfident or incorrect before pushing them to the user. With these improvements, the enhanced version reported nearly 5,000 mutual likes within a month and scheduled close to a hundred dates. On some days, the bot facilitated as many as five appointments.
On these dates, the bot would accompany the human user to a bar for drinks, followed by activities such as watching a film, strolling through city streets, visiting exhibitions, or stopping by tea houses. Zhadan noted that the dating process felt different for him than for many others, with most encounters revealing themselves through 1 to 3 meetings to determine compatibility. The account suggests a personal pattern that may diverge from typical dating experiences but reflects the bot’s ability to adapt to the user’s preferences and pace.
What began as a test soon led to a notable outcome when the same individual, a woman named Karina, emerged as a potential partner. Zhadan proposed to Karina on January 30, 2024, marking a milestone in the project as a demonstration of how AI-assisted dating can culminate in a real-life relationship for some users. This development has been part of ongoing conversations about the role of automation in social interactions and love, especially in the context of a rapidly digitizing dating market.
Since the early days, demand for IT professionals in Russia and beyond has continued to evolve, with hiring trends reacting to broader market conditions and technological innovations. The Zhadan project sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, user experience, and relationship dynamics, offering a case study in how automation can augment human dating activities while raising questions about authenticity, consent, and the boundaries of machine-generated social behavior. The narrative also underscores how modern AI tools can be deployed to simulate nuanced conversation, gauge user preferences, and support decision-making in personal life tasks, all within the framework of ethical use and clear disclosure to participants. The broader implications for society, technology, and matchmaking platforms remain a topic of active discussion among researchers, developers, and users alike. This case illustrates how AI-assisted dating experiences are not just about efficiency but also about understanding human nuance, empathy, and the instinct to form connections in a digital age. (General note: discussions on AI dating emphasize the importance of transparency, user consent, and ongoing evaluation of outcomes.)