Can a moody AI girlfriend make men more emotionally intelligent?

You leave a pile of dirty dishes stacked in the sink for your girlfriend to find when she gets home from work. This makes your girlfriend feel ___.

If you can’t fill in that blank, you might need AngryGF.

The new app is an AI-powered relationship simulator that walks straight men through gamified versions of common conflicts with wives and girlfriends.

Here’s how it works:

• Users can choose from a set of prewritten challenges — for example, “Your girlfriend and mother fall into a river at the same time. You save your mother first. Your girlfriend is very angry.” — to practice comforting an angry partner. A scale displays a “forgiveness level” that users have 10 attempts to get to 100 for a successful resolution or zero for failure.
• There’s also an AI chatbot that can answer specific relationship questions in real time. (The app spit out 10 pieces of advice when prompted with “What should I do if I forgot my girlfriend’s birthday?”)

AngryGF co-founder Emilia Aviles said she was inspired to create the app by past romantic relationships where she noticed “a lack of emotional support during difficult moments.”

The app, which was built on OpenAI’s GPT-4, offers limited scenarios and chatbot messages for free, but is $7 per week or $20 a month for increased access with a pro subscription.

Love in the time of AI

AngryGF isn’t the first AI app to try tackling relationship problems:

• Relish analyzes communication patterns to give couples personalized relationship advice.
• Maia helps couples work through fights, have conversations, and find date night ideas.
• Lovewick has anniversary reminders, couples games, and video date packs for long-distance relationships.

And there are plenty more springing up for matchmaking, platonic friendships, and managing emotions and communication.

Our relationship advice: If you do dabble with AngryGF, maybe don’t tell your partner you needed AI assistance to understand why she’s mad that you can’t stop talking about your ex.