This is Dating While Gray, the grown-ups guide to love, sex, and relationships.

I'm Laura Stasi, and I've been avoiding exploring how artificial intelligence can help with romance seeking.

Until now, that is,

coming up,

a little love help from my AI friend.

Here's a confession.

When I'm sitting at my desk and supposed to be writing,

my mind sometimes wanders to things like my favorite 1980s prime time soap opera. And then I start wondering,

who was that actor who played that guy with a drinking problem who cheated on his wife?

So then I type into the Google search bar, Nats Landing, cast of characters, and voila,

photos and names pop up, and I find the answer to my question.

Ted Shackleford, now 78 years old.

The character's name was Gary.

Now I remember.

So this example may not be the most significant question I posed to AI, but frankly, it's the

kind of interaction I feel most comfortable with.

Personally, when it comes to AI, I want to keep some guardrails up.

Of course, I know AI is used on the dating platforms, typically in the form of algorithms that analyze our preferences and activity so they can suggest appropriate matches.

In fact, dating coaches often advise us to switch up our online photos and increase our swiping and mate searching, to kind of spur on the algorithm to regularly offer us

fresh options. Recently, I got a press release about a relatively new app called Iris Dating. It uses

AI to determine who we find attractive and then sends us real-life options. So my first thought was that AI was somehow

looking into our eyes. You know how the iris responds to attraction by causing our pupils to

...