AI Tools Are Also Helping Scammers on Dating Apps

Cybersecurity company Avast has pointed to a popular AI tool that is helping scammers build better fake dating profiles and manipulate unsuspecting dating app users.

Nicknamed LoveGPT, the software has been around a while, but now its capabilities are stronger since it has incorporated AI into its tool. Now, LoveGPT can create more believable and better crafted profiles to trap users into interacting with them, not realizing they are chatting with a bot. This makes it easier to lure them into a scam.

According to website Decrypt, Avast claims that LoveGPT can create fake profiles on at least 13 different dating sites while it scrapes user photos, messages, profile bios, and other data. (It stores the scraped data in multiple databases.) The tool then separates users into different demographic categories, such as age, to better target victims and create more realistic profiles.

Avast told Decrypt that it’s not a simple tool and requires some technical expertise to install and use. In addition, it must run locally on a Windows computer and is coded in Microsoft’s longtime programming language Visual Basic. And while it’s been used for a while to scam people on dating apps, it has become increasingly effective with the ability to interact with victims and bypass CAPTCHA verification filters.

Love-GPT Control Center with Browser

Image: Avast

Decrypt also noted that the app can scan multiple dating platforms at once and hide behind “anonymization techniques” like proxy services and use virtual phone numbers to remain undetected. LoveGPT can also interact with users across various channels, and uses OpenAI’s DaVinci and ChatGPT-3.5 (notably not the more advanced GPT4) to generate messages, profiles, and more.  

"We have discovered a tool that provides vast functionality over several different dating platforms, providing the capability to create fake accounts, interact with victims, bypass CAPTCHA, anonymize the access using proxies and browser anonymization tools, and more," Avast reported.

Decrypt points out that recent research shows that people are more willing to select the AI-enhanced profile and photos over ones left untouched. Even though a majority of daters complain that they don’t know if they are messaging with a real person or AI, or if the photos have been retouched beyond recognition of their match, they still prefer the touched-up photos and messages, and will choose them for matches over untouched profiles. This could bode well for scammers using tools like LoveGPT, but not for dating app users.

While AI scamming tools are being used, they are not as prevalent as cryptocurrency scams, which have been rampant on dating apps, especially among young people.