The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that it has seized the CFAKE.com and SOCFAKE.com websites, which allegedly hosted nonconsensual AI-generated nude images and videos of women, in what appears to be the first publicly announced domain seizure under the TAKE IT DOWN Act.

According to the DOJ, the sites shared sexually explicit digital images, or deepfakes, depicting politicians, celebrities, athletes, musicians, and even royalty from multiple countries.

“According to the probable cause affidavit supporting the seizure warrants, the digital forgeries were made to appear to be sexual images of famous women, including politicians, first ladies of multiple countries, royalty, journalists, television presenters, athletes, entertainers, and others,” reads the DOJ announcement.

A deepfake is AI-generated or AI-manipulated media that depicts a person saying, doing, or appearing in ways that never occurred. Deepfake images and videos can be created from existing photos, videos, or audio recordings and are commonly used to generate nonconsensual nude content, impersonation scams, phishing attacks, and cryptocurrency fraud.

The CFAKE.com and SOCFAKE.com domains were seized on Thursday by the DOJ and Homeland Security Investigations after a federal judge found probable cause that they were being used to violate the TAKE IT DOWN Act.

The domains now display a seizure notice stating they were taken offline pursuant to a seizure warrant as part of an operation involving the US, Italy, and France.

“THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED by the United States Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New Jersey Field Office pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey as part of coordinated law enforcement actions by HSI, French National Police, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, Italy’s Polizia di Stato – Postal and Cybersecurity Police, United States Department of Justice’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey for violations of 47 U.S.C. § 223,” reads the seizure banner on the websites.

“The TAKE IT DOWN ACT (47 U.S.C. § 223) prohibits the nonconsensual publication of intimate imagery and digital forgeries (i.e., deepfakes). Violators are subject to fines, imprisonment or both.”

The investigation began after Italy’s Postal and Cybersecurity Police alerted US authorities to the websites.

According to Italian media reports, investigators opened an inquiry in October 2025 after receiving complaints regarding AI-generated sexually explicit images depicting women from politics, sports, entertainment, and other public-facing professions.

Italian authorities later obtained a court order blocking access to the websites within Italy while continuing their investigation. The DOJ says evidence gathered by US law enforcement was later shared with French authorities.

French prosecutors and investigators then conducted an investigation that led to the arrest of a suspect in Nice, France, on June 10, along with the seizure of cryptocurrency allegedly connected to the operation.

The bipartisan TAKE IT DOWN Act was signed into law in May 2025 to combat the spread of nonconsensual imagery, including AI-generated deepfake pornography. The legislation was championed by First Lady Melania Trump as part of her “Be Best” initiative.

The law makes it a federal crime to publish sexually explicit altered images depicting identifiable individuals without their consent. The legislation also requires online platforms to remove reported intimate images and deepfakes within 48 hours of receiving a valid request from a victim.

“These domain seizures mark a significant victory in the fight against deepfake pornography,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in Friday’s announcement.

“The TAKE IT DOWN Act, championed by First Lady Melania Trump, gives us the tools we need to combat the abuse and exploitation of women and children through these fabricated images.”

The law was previously used against an Ohio man who pleaded guilty to charges related to creating AI-generated sexually explicit images.

However, the seizure of CFAKE.com and SOCFAKE.com appears to be the first publicly announced use of the law to target websites allegedly used to distribute deepfake pornography.

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Over the weekend, Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced a small revolt when he delivered his commencement speech at Stanford University, where he earned his graduate degree in materials science and engineering. About 200 students from the graduating class reportedly walked out, while others loudly booed the tech executive.

The focus of the protest was Google’s defense ties — including Project Nimbus, the controversial $1.2 billion contract, shared with Amazon, to provide cloud and AI services to the Israeli military, as well as its relationship with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Student signs included phrases like “ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI” and “GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE,” as well as “FREE FREE PALESTINE,” a press release associated with the protest notes. Students also waved Palestinian flags and shouted “free Palestine,” online video of the protest shows.

“We are walking out because we refuse to glorify the corporations that fuel this violence and exercise our power to choose differently,” a statement associated with the protest reads.

The walkout was organized by a number of campus activist groups, including Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, No Tech for Apartheid, and Tech for Liberation. TechCrunch reached out to Google for comment.

As the war in Gaza has raged, Google’s participation in Nimbus has drawn protests from both inside and outside of the company. In 2024, Google fired 28 workers for protesting the contract, although it has continued to suffer internal dissent over the issue since then. It was also recently criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which accused it and other companies of “choosing to look the other way” on Israel’s use of their services.

Project Nimbus also enjoys support from Amazon. Microsoft has also been criticized for its support of the Israeli military, although the company restricted the Israeli government’s use of its technology after an investigation found that its cloud services were being used to mass-surveil Palestinians.

The student protest also drew criticism from business leaders online. Vinod Khosla, the billionaire co-founder of Sun Microsystems and one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists, posted on X that the protest was “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish,” adding that it was selfish because the students “ignored the bottom 3 billion people on this planet that could benefit from AI and they are worried about their misinformed selfish self-interest.”

Pichai’s appearance at Stanford is part of a broader pattern. Speakers at college graduation ceremonies around the country have faced boos when they have attempted to get outgoing college students excited about AI. But rarely has student animus been as targeted as it was with Pichai, directed not at AI hype, but at the specific business decisions made by the company he leads. In general, young people seem to believe that AI is threatening their employment opportunities and may be ruining other parts of society as well.

Sony only recently revealed God of War: Laufey, but new information is already beginning to paint a clearer picture of when players may finally get to experience the next chapter in the franchise. According to industry insider NateTheHate, the latest release window he has heard points to a launch sometime during the first half of 2027. While Sony and Santa Monica Studio have not officially confirmed a date, the report suggests development may be further along than many fans expected.

The claim also aligns with recent comments from Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who indicated that the lack of a release date should not be interpreted as a sign that the project is years away. Taken together, the reports suggest Sony may already have a relatively firm launch target in mind.

If the timeline holds, God of War: Laufey would arrive roughly four and a half years after God of War Ragnarök, which launched in November 2022. That would represent a shorter development cycle than many fans typically associate with modern blockbuster PlayStation games.

Faye steps out of the shadows

The biggest change in God of War: Laufey is its protagonist. For the first time, players will take control of Faye, also known as Laufey the Just. While she has been one of the most important characters in the Norse saga, her presence has largely been felt through memories, stories, and the impact of her decisions on Kratos and Atreus.

This game puts her at the center of the narrative. Early gameplay footage suggests Santa Monica Studio is building a very different combat system around Faye’s abilities. Unlike Kratos, whose fighting style revolves around brute force and powerful weapons, Faye appears to rely heavily on magic and environmental manipulation.

Players will reportedly be able to freeze rivers, reshape terrain, and use the environment itself as part of combat encounters. The result appears to be a faster and more agile combat style that distinguishes her from previous God of War protagonists.

The setting is equally intriguing. The story takes place in a mysterious realm known as the Everywhen, an afterlife dimension that appears to expand the franchise beyond the locations explored in the Norse saga.

A bigger mythology could be on the horizon

Another detail generating excitement among fans is the possibility of new mythological influences. Rumors suggest that while Norse mythology will remain a key part of the experience, elements inspired by Egyptian mythology could also appear. If true, it could mark the beginning of a larger expansion of the God of War universe and potentially set up future entries in the franchise.

Reaction to Faye as the lead character has been mixed but largely positive. Some fans are eager to finally learn more about one of the series’ most mysterious figures. Others remain attached to Kratos and are cautious about moving away from the character who has defined the franchise for two decades.

Sony has reportedly reassured players that Kratos remains an important part of the series and is not being written out of future plans. For now, the reported first-half 2027 release window remains unofficial. However, if the timeline is accurate, fans may not have to wait long for a deeper look at the game. A PlayStation Showcase or State of Play later this year could provide the next major update.

Until then, God of War: Laufey is shaping up to be one of PlayStation’s most anticipated upcoming releases.

ASUS does not need an introduction. The company makes everything from motherboards and monitors to gaming laptops, routers, mice, and the kind of RGB-soaked gear that can make a desktop look like it is trying to contact low Earth orbit. But headphones? That is where things get more interesting.

The ASUS ROG Kithara is not just another gaming headset with a detachable mic and a logo large enough to be seen from the hallway. Developed with HiFiMAN, it uses custom 100mm planar magnetic drivers and takes a very different path from most gaming headsets: open-back, wired, unapologetically audio-first, and priced at a surprisingly competitive $299.

That price matters because the 800-pound planar gorilla in the room is Audeze’s Maxwell 2, the wireless audiophile gaming headset that has already made the case that gamers do not have to settle for bloated bass, plastic build quality, and “immersive” tuning that sounds like someone threw a blanket over a subwoofer. The Kithara is not trying to beat Audeze at the same game.

It is ASUS and HiFiMAN asking a more focused question: what happens when you strip away wireless convenience, lean into planar performance, and build a gaming headset for listeners who care just as much about music as they do about footsteps?

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About My Preferences: This review is a subjective assessment and is therefore shaped by my personal preferences. While I try to mitigate this as much as possible during my review process, I’d be lying if I said my biases were completely erased. So, for you, my readers, please keep the following in mind:

My ideal sound signature includes competent sub-bass, textured mid-bass, a slightly warm midrange, and extended treble.

I have mild treble sensitivity.

My testing equipment and standards can be found here.

Key Specs:

• Price: $299
• Design: Open-back, wired
• Driver: 100mm planar magnetic, developed with HiFiMAN
• Frequency Response: 8Hz to 55kHz
• Impedance: 16 ohms
• Weight: 420 grams
• Microphone: Full-band MEMS boom mic
• Microphone Response: 20Hz to 20kHz
• Connections: 3.5mm, 6.3mm, 4.4mm balanced, USB-C adapter
• Wireless: No
• Bluetooth: No
• ANC: No
• RGB: No

Build

The Kithara feels nicely built in the hand. ASUS’s gamer-focused branding is emblazoned on the metal earcup grilles, which are cleanly machined and precisely installed into the earcup shells.

The Kithara is quite large, but not particularly heavy. Its adjustable headband slides along a spring-steel insert, and the notched adjustments feel tactile when moved. However, I encountered instances where the headband slipped out of its notches even while I was sitting still. That proved irritating, especially after carefully setting the headband to fit my head and properly angling the earcups.

As is tradition with HiFiMAN headphones, the Kithara’s cables are detachable. It uses standard dual-mono 3.5mm sockets, so aftermarket cables should be easy to source.

ASUS includes several cables in the box: one with a built-in boom microphone and one for standard headphone use. The boom-mic cable features in-line volume control and splits into two 3.5mm plugs, one for headphone audio and one for microphone input. That makes it easy to connect the Kithara to separate headphone and microphone jacks on a PC motherboard or case.

For devices without analog 3.5mm jacks, ASUS also includes a USB-C adapter. In my testing, it worked properly with Windows 10, Windows 11, and Linux Mint.

Platform compatibility is broad, but there are some caveats. ASUS lists support for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, iPad, iOS, Android, and Xbox consoles via 3.5mm connection. For PlayStation consoles, the USB-C adapter is the safer route for full headset and microphone support. Xbox support is more limited: audio works through the 3.5mm jack on the controller, but microphone support should not be assumed. Regardless, the mic’s performance, on supported devices, is strong. It ignores significant amounts of background noise while delivering strong voice pickup.

The second cable is fairly standard, with a simple black chain braid and modular terminations. ASUS includes 6.35mm, 4.4mm balanced, and 3.5mm plugs in the box, making the Kithara compatible with a wide range of headphone amps, DACs, PCs, consoles, and portable devices.

Comfort

Comfort depends heavily on individual ear anatomy, so your mileage may vary.

The Kithara is physically large, but it doesn’t feel especially heavy on the head. Despite weighing 420 grams, I found it very comfortable during extended listening sessions, even when my office had warmed up. My head is average in size, but my wife’s is quite small. She was able to use the Kithara, though only at its smallest headband setting. Even then, the headset floated slightly and didn’t make ideal contact with the top of her head. She reported no discomfort around her ears, however.

For context, the Kithara is lighter than the Audeze Maxwell 2, which weighs roughly 490 grams, but heavier than many mainstream gaming headsets from SteelSeries, Logitech, and HyperX that typically fall in the 300-400 gram range. Its comfort is helped by good weight distribution and large earcups rather than a particularly low overall weight.

Listening

Each Kithara comes with a unique frequency-response certificate that details the measured behavior of that specific unit. While the Kithara’s overall sound signature should remain consistent from unit to unit, some variance is still possible.

Broadly speaking, the Kithara has a V-shaped sound signature, with elevated bass and treble. Its midrange is neutrally toned, sounding full and rich without becoming thick or heavy. The Kithara’s soundstage is wide and deep, complemented by its speedy, responsive drivers. Extension is excellent, with the upper treble and sub-bass reaching toward the extremes with minimal roll-off.

Energetic Treble

As is tradition with headphones made by HiFiMAN, the Kithara’s treble is bright and forward. It renders metallic elements crisply and with precision, layering hi-hats and cymbals effortlessly. The Kithara’s ability to capture lifelike timbre is impressive. For example, I was able to clearly make out the ringing guitars being strummed in the background of “Throw Me in the Water” by WILD, even as the chorus became progressively busier.

The cost of having such forward and energetic treble is that the Kithara can occasionally sound harsh or sibilant. The vocals and synthetic effects in “Satisfy” by Nero pushed close to the edge of comfort for me at my normal listening volume, creating a bit of distraction that is not present with my less-bright headphones.

Crunchy, Textured Midrange

The Kithara has a subtly cool midrange that slightly deviates from neutral tonality. This clean style of tuning complements the Kithara’s speed and technical ability, allowing it to render impressive textural depth. While listening to “In Exile” by Thrice, I was impressed by the consistency and delicacy with which the Kithara resolved the vibration of guitar strings against the fretboards. And it’s not just guitars; the Kithara’s midrange is tuned to perform well across the board.

I found that the Kithara was more than capable of staging subtle and nuanced vocal performances, pulling plenty of detail from tracks like “What a Shame” by Shinedown. Elements with complex harmonics, like the piano in “The Ocean” by Manchester Orchestra, are delivered with fullness and a sense of cohesion, which is not always common in headphones with cooler-leaning mids like the Kithara.

Dynamic Bass Performance

The Kithara’s bass is surprisingly forward, delivering full-sounding mid-bass while still extending well into the sub-bass. It synergizes well with drums in rock and alternative music, generating subtle, rich drum beats. They are not thunderous, but they do have a delicate tactility to them. This allows the Kithara to develop a solid, full foundation on tracks like “My Hero” by Foo Fighters.

It is with this undercurrent of richness that the Kithara builds its high-contrast presentation. With this depth, it renders a convincingly weighty atmosphere on tracks like “Kids” by MGMT and “Lisztomania” by Phoenix. Their respective bass lines sound phenomenal on the Kithara, and I almost thought I had been listening to a dynamic-driver headphone.

As bassy as the Kithara can be, it is ultimately still an open-back planar headphone. As such, there is a limit to how much punch and rumble its drivers can produce. While articulate and full-range, the Kithara does not generate enough bass output to feel truly immersive on electronic tracks like “No Way (Bassnectar Remix).” I was likewise a bit disappointed by the amount of rumble it produced while listening to “Blackout” by Mike Hawkins.

Gaming 

The Kithara is sold under ASUS’s gaming sub-brand, ROG. As such, we put it through the wringer, using it for both competitive multiplayer games and robust, story-driven single-player experiences.

In fast-paced FPS titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6, the Kithara performed admirably. Directional cues, even subtle ones, were rendered crisply and intelligibly. The Kithara’s forward treble was not particularly fatiguing during prolonged gunfights, though I do not typically play games at very high volumes.

I was also impressed with the Kithara’s ability to manage chaotic scenes in battle-royale games. Titles like Apex Legends, which often demand precise placement of sonic cues generated by multiple competing squads, can be challenging for warmer headphones, but not for the Kithara. Tense, audio-oriented extraction shooters like Arc Raiders are an even better match for the Kithara’s precise and well-measured tuning.

The Bottom Line

The ASUS ROG Kithara is a high-fidelity gaming headset built for listeners who care as much about music as they do about competitive play. Its HiFiMAN-developed planar magnetic drivers, open-back design, detachable cables, useful accessory package, and full-band boom microphone make it a far more serious audio product than most headsets wearing a gaming badge.

What makes the Kithara unique is its focus. It is not trying to be a wireless do-everything headset like the Audeze Maxwell 2. There is no Bluetooth, no ANC, no battery, no app, and no virtual surround processing trying to dress up mediocre drivers. Instead, ASUS and HiFiMAN have built a wired, open-back planar headset with wide staging, fast transient response, strong detail retrieval, and enough bass presence to avoid sounding thin.

That focus also creates limitations. The Kithara leaks sound, offers little isolation, and its forward treble may be too much for gamers or listeners with stronger treble sensitivity. The fit may also be less ideal for smaller heads, and some users may not need the boom mic or USB-C adapter enough to justify the full package. At $299, it faces real competition from traditional audiophile headphones and feature-rich gaming headsets alike.

But for the right user, the Kithara makes a lot of sense. If you want planar-driver speed, an open and spacious presentation, strong gaming positional accuracy, and a tuning that works well for both music and FPS titles, the ASUS ROG Kithara is one of the more interesting wired gaming headsets in its class.

Pros:

• Aggressively priced
• Lots of useful accessories
• Strong, deep bass response
• Crisp and articulate upper-register
• Tons of performance
• Comfortable and lightweight
• Breathable
• Wide console/PC compatibility
• Excellent mic performance

Cons:

• Occasional treble sharpness
• Large earcups don’t fit on shorter headphone stands
• No storage case
• Headband occasionally “slips”

Our Ratings:

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Comfort

★★★★★★★★★★ Usability

★★★★★★★★★★ Build Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Value

Where to buy:

Related Reading:

Photo credit: Katie Jameson/Caltech/DSA Project
Construction crews will soon start work on a remote valley floor in Nevada. Caltech astronomers intend to place 1,650 radio dishes across a rectangle roughly 20 kilometers long and 16 kilometers wide. The finished array will sweep the visible sky several times during its first five years of operation and move 100 times faster than any radio telescope now in use.

This new project, known as the Deep Synoptic Array, consists of a constellation of dishes that will catch radio waves with wavelengths thousands of times longer than light from visible stars. These waves include crucial information about pulsars, strange celestial bodies, rapid radio bursts that we don’t yet understand, distant galaxies, and black hole events. The truth is that no other instrument we know of has the same catching area or ability to produce clear images over a wide field of vision as this one.

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Each dish has a diameter of approximately 6.1 metres, and one of the prototypes may be seen at Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory in California, where engineers have been working on the concept for years. When everything is ready, it will just sit on some basic mounts and be linked to a supercomputer situated elsewhere via fiber-optic links. The computer will subsequently be able to integrate the signals from all 1,650 dishes in real time.

So, in theory, the raw data would be too large for most storage devices to handle. That is why the team developed the idea of a ‘radio camera’ that eliminates all superfluous data while maintaining only the cleaned photos. That wizardry is made possible by software that runs on a bank of NVIDIA GPUs and quickly turns incoming waves into finished visuals. Only the final, clean photographs are kept in storage. The system is still processing massive amounts of data, more than all of the internet traffic in the United States, but it only requires tens of petabytes of storage per year, rather than the 100 exabytes expected.

Because the DSArray was meant to be fast, it is unsurprising that it will have a large impact on the number of sources that we can catalog in a short amount of time. The previous generation of telescopes were only able to catalog around 20 million sources over their operational lifetime. The new array is intended to function on the first day of operation, which is an excellent idea. Over the next five years, it plans to discover more than 1 billion previously undisclosed radio sources. The list of scientific goals that this data will help astronomers achieve is extensive, but it includes over 100,000 fast radio bursts that can be traced back to the galaxy from whence they originated. They also hope to find over 20,000 new pulsars and maps of star and gas forms within galaxies that are far more detailed than previous optical and infrared surveys.

Photo credit: Francois Kapp/Caltech/DSA Project
The fact that the receivers function perfectly at room temperature keeps the electronics simple, so we don’t have to worry about them breaking every five minutes, and the special parts that convert radio waves into electrical signals don’t need to be overly complicated, as they simply use ordinary metal parts inspired by baking pans or something, which makes sense when you think about it. All of this low-cost, low-complexity technology has been tried in previous pathfinder arrays of 110 dishes and has proven to be effective.
[Source]

PATCHES

Second Catalyst SD-WAN Manager flaw exploited as an 0-day this month

Cisco today issued a fix for a Catalyst SD-WAN Manager bug that attackers have already spotted and exploited to get root privileges, according to both the networking vendor and the feds.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20262, is in the web UI of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, and exists because the software is not properly validating user-supplied input during a file upload process.

“An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected API endpoint of the affected system,” the vendor warned in a Monday security advisory. “A successful exploit could allow the attacker to create or overwrite any file on the underlying operating system. This file could later be used to elevate to root.”

There is one caveat: to exploit this bug, the attacker must have valid credentials with at least a lower-privileged, single-task user account. 

That probably explains the medium-severity, 6.8 CVSS rating for this bug.

Still, valid credentials aren’t hard to come by these days, and considering this CVE is already under attack, we know someone had some success. 

“In June 2026, the Cisco PSIRT became aware of limited exploitation of this vulnerability,” the security alert said. “Cisco continues to strongly recommend that customers upgrade to a fixed software release to remediate this vulnerability.”

The flaw affects all deployment types, regardless of device configuration. There are no workarounds, but upgrading to a fixed software version will patch the flaw.

Also on Monday, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added CVE-2026-20262 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, citing “evidence of active exploitation.” America’s lead cyber-defense agency also set a two-week deadline for all federal agencies to apply the patch.

This latest Cisco SD-WAN bug under attack comes less than two weeks after Switchzilla warned that a high-severity vulnerability in Catalyst SD-WAN Manager vulnerability (CVE-2026-20245) was under active exploitation. At the time of disclosure, this SD-WAN vuln did not have a fix.

Cisco issued an advisory for that zero-day on June 4, and finally released patches for all affected versions on June 12.

This is the eighth Cisco SD-WAN bug to be listed in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog so far this year.®

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc’s Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

Using AI to write your dating app messages is no longer a surprise. More than 1 in 4 singles in the US have already used AI to help with their dating life, a figure that jumped 333% in a single year.

Dating apps are actively encouraging it, too. Hinge is pushing AI features into its app, Bumble has its own Bee AI assistant, and Facebook Dating now has an AI chatbot to help you find love. However, a new peer-reviewed study from Constructor University suggests that it might not be the romantic shortcut everyone hoped for.

What the Cyrano Effect reveals about AI-assisted romance

Named after the French play about a man who writes love letters on behalf of someone else, the Cyrano Effect describes what happens when AI becomes the real author of your romantic communication.

Researcher Dr. Lennart Ante interviewed 45 dating app users, split between people who used AI to write their messages and people who received them. AI users rarely saw themselves as cheaters. Many framed ChatGPT as social anxiety medication in text form, a phrase one participant actually used. Others treated online dating as a numbers game to optimize before the real connection happens in person.

Meanwhile, the people on the receiving end of these messages had a very different experience. Words like betrayed, violated, and catfished came up repeatedly. Several became so suspicious of well-written messages that one described every conversation as an exhausting Turing test.

The moment AI-assisted charm meets real life and falls completely flat

One participant described spending the day before a date rereading the AI chat, trying to memorize how to act, calling it “cramming for an exam, but the subject is this fake version of yourself.” Dr. Ante calls this the Persona-to-Person Leap, the anxiety-ridden moment when an AI-polished online persona has to show up in real life without any algorithmic backup.

Recipients described meeting someone who seemed charming online but turned up quiet and awkward in person. The AI had set a bar that the real person could not clear.

The study does not call for outright bans on AI dating tools, noting they can help people with social anxiety or language barriers. But it argues that when the words that spark a connection are not yours, the connection tends not to survive beyond the first coffee.