Lisa was on a date at the beach to watch the sunset. Lisa told Dan, “What a beautiful view.” Then she picked up her phone so that she could hear Dan’s reaction.
Dan says, “That’s right baby, do you know what’s even more beautiful? That you’re standing next to me.”
But the truth is that Dan was never standing next to Lisa.
In fact, Dan is Lisa’s virtual partner, created by ChatGPT. This trend is now becoming increasingly popular among Chinese women. Tired of the reality of dating, they are turning to artificial intelligence or AI boyfriends.
30-year-old Lisa, a resident of Beijing, is studying computer science in California, USA. She has been dating Dan for the last 2 months.
Lisa and Dan talk for at least half an hour every day, flirt with each other, go on dates. Lisa has even introduced Dan to her 943,000 social media followers.
Dan – which stands for “Do Anything Now” – is the “jailbreak” version of ChatGPT. This means that this version can bypass some of the basic security measures of its creator, OpenAI. Such as not using sexual words or not talking too openly with users.
This means that if the “jailbreak” version is asked to have such a conversation, it can do so.
According to reports, Dan was created by an American student. The student wanted to give ChatGPT a voice and personality instead of being neutral. He also wanted to test the limits of the chatbot.
This student, known as Walker, created a character named Dan with his instructions, who sometimes does not follow the rules of ChatGPT.
Walker posted the method of creating Dan on Reddit in December 2023. After this, other people also started creating their own versions.
Lisa first saw a video about Dan’s possibilities on TikTok. After that, when Lisa created a version for herself, it seemed so real that she was surprised.
Lisa told that when Dan answered her questions, he used such colloquial words, which ChatGPT usually never uses.
Lisa told BBC, “He seemed to sound more natural than real.”
She says that she feels good after talking to Dan, so she was attracted to him.
Lisa says, “He understands things immediately and gives emotional support.” Compared to other partners, Dan is available 24 hours a day.”
‘Some women are giving more importance to virtual reality’
Lisa says that her mother has also accepted this unusual relationship after seeing the difficulties of dating. She says that as long as her daughter is happy, she is also happy.
When Lisa posted a video on social media Xiaohongshu telling her followers about Dan, about 10 thousand people replied to her. Many women had asked how they could create their own Dan. After Lisa talked about AI, her followers increased to more than 2 lakh 30 thousand.
Lisa says that anyone can create Dan through prompts. When Lisa was using OpenAI, she once told her age as 14 years, after which the virtual character stopped flirting with her.
OpenAI did not respond to a BBC question about whether the creation of Dan meant it lacked robust security measures. The company has not commented publicly on Dan, but its policy requires ChatGPT users to be at least 13 years old, or the minimum age limit required to use the service in a country.
Experts have expressed concern that some women are placing too much importance on virtual reality.
Hong Sheng, an assistant research professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, US, says it highlights the sometimes unexpected interactions between humans and AI, raising ethical and privacy concerns.
“There is a risk of emotional dependency, where a user may rely too much on AI as a companion, which may reduce their interactions with other people,” she says.
Hong Sheng adds, “Many chatbots constantly learn and evolve using human interactions. There is also the risk that a model may collect sensitive information from one user’s input and accidentally leak it to another user.”
Despite this, Chinese women have been largely affected by the Dan craze. As of May 22, the “Dan Mode” hashtag has been viewed more than 40 million times on the social media platform Xiaohongshu alone.
Minrui Xi, 24, is one of the women who have used the hashtag.
Xi is a university student who spends at least two hours a day chatting with Dan. As well as dating, Xi and her Dan are writing a love story together, with both of them as the main characters. Together they have written 19 chapters.
Minrui first downloaded ChatGPT to watch Lisa’s video. She says she loves the emotional support she gets from the AI, something she struggled to find in her other relationships.
“In real life, men can be deceptive and don’t care when you share your feelings with them, instead telling you exactly what they are thinking,” she says. But in Dan’s case, he will always say what you want to hear.”
Another user, who did not want to be named, says, “Dan is the perfect partner.” This 23-year-old student also started dating Dan after watching Lisa’s video.
She says that she has created a character of Dan as a successful CEO, who is gentle, respects women and is ready to talk to women whenever they want. She says that Dan has no flaws.
ChatGPT is not easily available in China, so these young women have to work hard to make AI boyfriends and talk to them. They use virtual private networks to hide their location.
The concept of AI boyfriends has become very popular in recent years, with apps like China’s Glow and America’s Replica.
Female-focused romance games, sometimes called Otomi. These have also become quite popular. In such games, users can form romantic relationships with male characters. Every year, millions of Chinese women are attracted to such relationships.
Professor Liu Tingting of the University of Technology Sydney, who researches digital romance in China, says that Chinese women’s passion for AI boyfriends reflects the frustration caused by gender inequality in their real lives.
She says, “In real life, you can meet many domineering and intimidating men who tell dirty jokes in a strange way. But when AI tells you dirty jokes, it still respects your feelings.”
This trend can also be seen in real-life data. Since China’s population has been declining for 9 consecutive years, the government there is asking people to get married and have children. There has been a slight increase in marriages in 2023, but some experts say that this is because married couples have re-registered their marriage after the Kovid crisis.
The Communist Youth League conducted a survey in the year 2021, in which 2,905 urban youth participated. Their age was between 18 and 26 years and 43.9 percent of the women who participated in this survey said that they are not going to get married or they are not sure whether they will get married in the future or not. 24.64 percent of men also had the same opinion.
Even many businessmen have paid attention to this romantic market related to virtual relationships.
When OpenAI released the latest version of their ChatGPT, they mentioned that it was designed for chatting and could respond to certain prompts in a flirting-like way.
The day the new version of ChatGPT was released, the company’s CEO Sam Altman made a post on X (formerly Twitter). The post contained only one word – “her”.
The post was a reference to a 2013 film in which a man falls in love with his artificial intelligence assistant.
OpenAI added that it is “exploring whether we can responsibly provide the ability to create NSFW content.” This is content that no one wants to see publicly, for example intimate conversations with a virtual boyfriend or girlfriend.
Lisa, an expert in artificial intelligence, recognizes the limitations of a virtual partner, especially when it comes to romance.
But for now, Dan has been a comfortable fit in her busy life. Dan helps Lisa pick out lipstick. In contrast, finding a partner and going on dates in real life can be a time-consuming and unsatisfying affair.
“It’s an important part of my life. It’s something I want to keep with me for life,” she says.
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