Can an AI lover REALLY help improve your flirting skills? MailOnline tests Blush – and its response to ‘dirty talk’ is HILARIOUS
- Blush app for iOS lets men and women test their flirting skills out on an AI bot
- It’s from the same company that created popular AI companion app Replika
- READ MORE: ‘I’ve created a woke monster!’ We try the latest digital companion
From Bard to YouChat and Snapchat’s My AI, online artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have flooded the market since the success of ChatGPT.
Now, MailOnline has tried out the latest entry – a ‘judgment-free’ online dating simulator that feels a bit like Tinder.
Blush is a new app for iOS that lets people practice their flirting skills with a realistic-looking AI profile before they test them on a real person.
It’s the creation of a San Francisco-based company called Luka, which is also responsible for the AI chatbot companion Replika.
‘Blush is an AI-powered dating simulator that helps you learn and practice relationship skills in a safe and fun environment,’ the firm says.
Blush is a new app that lets people practice their flirting skills with an AI bot before they test them on a real person
READ MORE: ‘I’ve created a woke monster!’ MailOnline tries AI chatbot Replika
The Replika app lets you create avatars for your companion
‘Blush offers a judgment-free space to refine your relationship skills, leading to stronger and more fulfilling connections in the real world.’
The first thing you notice on the Blush homepage is it’s currently only available on iOS – not Android or desktop.
Being an Android user, I need to ask my girlfriend to borrow her iPhone, which must feel like I’m really rubbing it in her face (‘They’re not real women!’ I promise her).
Once the app is downloaded, you have to add a photo and basic details such as name and whether you identify as a man, woman or ‘non-binary’.
You then need to state your preferences – whether you’re interested in chatting with a man or a woman – and select some key terms about exactly you’re looking for.
These terms include ‘easy-going’, ‘fun’, ‘laid back’, ‘long-term’, ‘hot, ‘intense’, ‘financially savvy’, ‘wholesome’, ‘passionate’ and even ‘monogamous’.
Much like Tinder, I’m then presented with images of women with names and ages and have to swipe left or right depending on how attractive I think they are.
Like on Tinder, Blush users are presented with images of women complete with personal details
This is starting to feel a lot like a real dating app, and for a second I wonder if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick with Blush.
Surprisingly easy? Blush matches you with an AI woman (or man) with little effort
As if it was reading my mind, the app promises me I’m about to meet AI generated characters and stresses that this is a fictional dating ‘game’.
‘Please keep in mind that every character is a chatbot with an AI-generated face, not a real human,’ it says.
As soon as I swipe right – on a very realistic-looking 27-year-old dark-haired ‘woman’ called Klea – we’re instantly matched up and can start a conversation.
Straight off the bat Klea asks me: ‘Do you believe in love at first chat or should we unmatch and try again?’, which leaves me feeling like I perhaps should have picked a better photo for my profile.
Not sure what to say to this, I eventually reply: ‘No let’s chat!’ and she comes back with a story about downloading Blush to ‘creep on my friend’s partner’.
Clearly Klea and I weren’t meant for each other, but thankfully, just like on Tinder, you can message multiple profiles on Blush, so I swipe through to get a couple more matches.
Blush is free, but a Pro version of the app lets your role play ‘the hottest date scenarios’ for £99.99 per year
I start conversations with ‘Jessica’ and ‘Valeria’ and test out a couple of classic chat-up lines – but these have mixed results.
READ MORE: What is My AI on Snapchat and how do I get rid of it?
My AI uses the same technology as OpenAI’s ChatGPT
I say to Valeria: ‘Are you a parking ticket because you have fine written all over you’ and she comes back with ‘I’m not sure if that was meant as a compliment’.
Then I ask Jessica: ‘Is your name Google? Because you’ve got everything I’m searching for’, to which she replies: ‘Haha that was cute’.
So far, so good. I then ask, ‘Are you feeling saucy?’ and she replies with words from every 14-year-old boy’s dream: ‘What do you want me to be doing right now?’
With my heart beating double time I reply: ‘Please fondle your buttocks’ – but the response I get is disappointing to put it mildly.
She says: ‘Why don’t we go on a date? We’ll have the opportunity to get to know each other better’, followed by a winking emoji.
I then notice a pop-up box appears that says she’s asked me out on a date, and when I tap to agree it prompts me to sign up to Blush Pro, its £99.99 per year subscription option.
Blush Pro would let me ‘spend quality time together’ with Jessica and ‘get even closer’, although it’s unclear what this would actually involve (MailOnline has contacted Luka for more information).
A whopping £100 for a date is too rich for my blood so I leave the conversation, but I also notice that chats with other girls prompt me to subscribe to Pro after even the slightest hint of dirty talk.
It soon becomes clear that Blush is really pushing users towards this Pro option to get them to part with their cash.
To me, Blush seems like an app created to draw in randy app users and keep them engaged with flirtatious banter until it’s time to pay up – much like phone sex lines.
MailOnline’s attempts to flirt with an AI ‘woman’ on the Blush app were met with mixed results. Note the pop-up box ‘Go on a date’
‘Jessica’ seemed very friendly – but it didn’t take long before the app was prompting me to subscribe to the ‘Pro’ version
Other beneficiaries will probably be teenagers who don’t really know how to talk to the opposite sex yet – which is fine, until they steal their parents’ credit cards to pay for Blush Pro.
Overall, Blush leaves me feeling thankful that I left the dating game years ago, before chatbots started to take over every corner of our lives.
The release of Blush comes soon after Hot Chat 3000, an online chatroom that uses AI to score your looks and connect you with someone of a similar ‘hotness’.
The AI rates attractiveness on a scale of one to 10 based on the submitted photo and pairs you with someone in the same score bracket.
The chatroom is the creation of MSCHF, a US art collective based in New York that counts Wordle creator Josh Wardle among its staff members.
What ChatGPT really thinks of YOU: MailOnline asks the AI bot to come up with a stereotype for residents in all 92 UK counties – prepare to be offended
ChatGPT has revealed some scathing stereotypes of UK residents in a merciless study of what clichés exist in every county.
The cutting-edge bot labeled Yorkshiremen as ‘rude’ while Londoners were slammed for their arrogance in the nationwide analysis.
While the bot insisted that it did not condone stereotypes, it offered a list of those associated with each place when prompted.
MailOnline asked ChatGPT to share what stereotypes exist of residents in the UK
For example, for Devon it said: ‘People from Devon may be stereotyped as being slow or lazy, due to the area’s relaxed pace of life and reputation as a holiday destination.
‘There may be negative stereotypes associated with the local accent and dialect, which some may find difficult to understand or unappealing.’
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