There Are No Girls on the Internet
There Are No Girls on the Internet

Scammers are using AI to make you fall in love

October 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

AI is Already in Your Dating Life — Whether You Like It or Not

The 2025 FBI Internet Crime Report logged 22,364 complaints containing AI-related information, with more than $893 million in reported losses specifically from romance scams. But the most alarming number might be this: Match and the Kinsey Institute's 2025 Singles in America study found that 26% of singles said they were using AI to enhance their dating lives — a 333% increase over the previous year. The technology isn't just enabling people to fall in love with chatbots; it is quietly reshaping how real humans meet, talk to, and trust each other.

The Old Algorithm Was Already Mediating Attraction

Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet, argues that the line between algorithmic matchmaking and AI-mediated dating was never as bright as people think. Dating platforms have long used algorithms to decide who gets shown to whom — systems that absorb and amplify human biases. Todd points to sociologist April Williams's book Not My Type, which documents a Black woman who kept all her photos the same but changed her listed race to white on a dating app. Her experience improved dramatically, suggesting the algorithm had been filtering her out of potential matches based on race, not individual preference.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (02:54) **Welcome & Setting the Scene** - Host Bridget Todd and producer Mike open from the Bahamar resort in the Bahamas, celebrating the launch of their audiobook *Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy*.
  • 2 (13:39) **The Real AI-Dating Problem: It's Already Here** - Bridget reframes the conversation away from extreme cases (dating AI) to the mundane reality: AI is already embedded in how humans date each other on apps.
  • 3 (16:38) **The Hook: A Scam That Bridget Can't Stop Thinking About** - Bridget introduces a story about a scammer who pretended to be an NFL player for the San Francisco 49ers, using both old-school tactics and AI to deceive women.
  • 4 (18:05) **Algorithms as Matchmakers: A Long-Standing Mediation** - Mike points out that AI's role in dating isn't entirely new; algorithms have been mediating attraction on dating platforms for years.
  • 5 (26:24) **The Exhaustion Driving AI Adoption** - Bridget explains why people are turning to AI for dating help, despite hating the idea of it.
  • 6 (33:26) **The Deception Question: Where Is the Line?** - Bridget asks whether using AI to date is inherently deceptive, and explores the gray areas with examples from her single friends.
  • 7 (36:42) **A Real-World Example: The ChatGPT Grammar Gap** - Bridget shares a viral story from Threads about a woman who realized her match was using ChatGPT to write messages after his grammar suddenly plummeted when he didn't have time to run them through the tool.

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Guests on this episode

Bridget Todd

Show Notes

What if the person you're falling for isn't who they say they are, and AI is helping them fool you? Romance scammers are using AI to create fake identities, write convincing messages, and even manipulate Google results to build trust and steal money. In one alleged scheme, a man posing as a San Francisco 49ers player used a Google AI Overview to bolster his fake identity.

But AI isn't just changing how people get scammed. From Tinder and Bumble to flirting with help from ChatGPT, it's increasingly shaping how we meet, date, and connect with real people. Bridget Todd explores what happens when technology can manufacture the very things that make romance feel real, and why verifying someone's identity is getting harder.

Get Bridget’s audiobook Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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