Aditya Iyer has over 10,000 followers on Instagram. He posts stories and pictures of a friend's destination wedding, romancing elderly couples, cars, bicycle outings and holidays. And yes, he also cooks.
In short, Aditya's suave look, chiselled features and interests ranging from the adventurous to the culinary make him the perfect Valentine in this season of love. Only, he does not exist.
Aditya Iyer is virtual, an Artificial Intelligence-generated bot. Each image on his profile is AI-generated and their captions processed by ChatGPT, a dialogue-based chatbot which has emerged as a key talking point for its ability to have perfectly natural conversations.
The creation of Aditya Iyer is part of a marketing campaign by matchmaking service BharatMatrimony.
BharatMatrimony has said that they launched the Instagram profile at the beginning of the Valentine's Week and within days, it had more than 10,000 followers. "He started celebrating rose day, propose day, kiss day and declared his intention to find a valentine, generating buzz and excitement among his followers. However, on Valentine's Day, it was revealed that Aditya Iyer, the perfect valentine, was not real, but a campaign setup to showcase the importance of connecting with real people looking for real love," the service provider said in a statement.
BharatMatrimony's chief marketing officer Arjun Bhatia said the objective of the campaign is to emphasise that "perfection is not real". "Each of us is beautifully flawed. It takes two endearingly imperfect people who are perfect for each other to form a happy marriage. And for those seeking their perfect match, come to BharatMatrimony where you will find real people searching for real love," he added.
Perfect valentine Aditya Iyer is only one example of how artificial intelligence has influenced how we find love this Valentine season.
According to a study by cybersecurity provider McAfee, 78 per cent of Indian adults fell for a love letters written on ChatGPT in the run-up to Valentine's Day.
The study, titled 'Modern Love' also found 62 per cent of Indian adults plan to use AI to help write their love letters this Valentine's Day. About 70 per cent are exploring how they can use AI to better their profiles on dating apps.
