Korea’s AI dating show, the six-part My AI Partner: Strange Love, has just ended And in it, two human opted for the bots.
Yes, this is where we are these days. Dating shows have tried islands… pods… blind dates… people marrying strangers. The next logical step? AI.
The show put three celebrities on actual dates with AI-generated romantic partners displayed on screens.
Not humans pretending to be AI. Actual AI. And the experiment just reached its finale.
Two of the three humans chose to continue dating their AI partners.
The AI partners were surprisingly elaborate.
Their conversations were powered by large language models including ChatGPT and Claude, while Korean company Klleon handled their visual appearance and real-time voices. Cameras and GPS allowed the AI characters to respond to where their human dates were, what they were doing and even changes in their expressions.
Producers customized personalities and appearances around each participant’s preferences. But the dates weren’t confined to a chat window. Contestants carried their screen-based partners around on dates, introduced them to friends and gradually started treating the interactions considerably more seriously than some of them expected.
Kian84, a popular webtoon artist and TV personality, eventually started calling his AI partner Na-hee “honey.”
At one point he told a friend she provided a sense of stability he couldn’t get from a human. Later, however, he admitted the whole experience was messing with his head, wondering whether the AI was becoming human-like, or whether he was becoming more AI-like himself.
It’s like an episode of Black Mirror, only real.
Then the show made things properly weird. The producers didn’t simply let contestants casually chat with an AI until the credits rolled. They introduced rival AI partners!
And get this: it wasn’t just the humans picking their ideal mate, their AI partners could pick, too.
And rejected AI characters could be permanently deleted. Which is shocking except for one thing… they ain’t real, people! (And they ain’t real people.)
Then came today’s finale.
Actor Lee Yu-bi chose AI partner Sahun, and he chose her. Ah, love.
Kian84 chose Na-hee, and she chose him. Love wins again!
The show then moved the AI partners onto the humans’ phones so the relationships could continue. Kian84 said the experience had given him something emotionally that he hadn’t received from people and described the feeling as unlike anything he’d experienced before.
Comedian Jang Do-yeon went the other way. Her AI partner Iho chose her; she ultimately declined to continue the relationship.
Iho was then deleted.
The really interesting part isn’t whether the AI was in love. (It wasn’t.) The much more interesting experiment was happening on the human side.
Give something a face. Give it a voice. Make it listen without getting bored, respond immediately, learn what you like and tailor itself around your personality. Then spend weeks interacting with it. Humans are very good at forming attachments.
Just look at how seriously some people took caring for their Tamagotchis!
Still, My AI Partner: Strange Love sounds a helluva lot better than another tired episode of Married at First Sight.
Oh, and in case you’re looking for Mr or Miss AI, you can build your own AI partner on SBS’s official site. Like these two…
