A man has created an artificial intelligence program that sends women on dating apps text messages using only quotes from American Psycho and James Bond movies. Since then, he’s been able to date 49,000 women in New York City at the same time.

Ethan Keiser first posted a TikTok video detailing his program back in January that went viral on the app. In the video, Keiser explained that he reverse engineered all the major dating apps and stored 49,000 dating profiles in a database. He then wrote a program that swiped right on every profile, which got him around 5,000 matches.

To speak to all 5,000 women, Keiser built an artificial intelligence that sent messages using movie quotes from the character Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and James Bond. Keiser was so successful that 500 women gave him their phone numbers.

Keiser’s program sparked a debate on TikTok about online dating. Many users believed Keiser was essentially catfishing these women, and he could potentially hurt their feelings once they realised they were speaking to a computer program. However, others are saying: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

“So, a lot of people are mad at me for this video I uploaded on how I dated 49,000 women in New York City at the same time,” Keiser said in a follow-up TikTok posted to his account on Thursday.

“Some people said this was wrong and I should feel bad because this could hurt someone and they might feel like they got ghosted, and that I shouldn’t be playing with people’s emotions,” he added. “What do you guys think?”

“Agree with not playing with people’s emotions,” commented one person. “They were essentially catfished.”

“It’s a numbers game bro,” wrote someone else. “I say do anything you can to get ahead.”

“I don’t take anyone seriously on dating apps until I meet them, so I feel like this is 100 per cent fair game,” said another TikTok user.

One person wondered if Keiser wasn’t the only person using an AI on dating apps: “That’d be funny if some of the people you matched with were doing the same thing. AI’s falling in love.”

This is not the first discussion about proper dating app etiquette that has been sparked on social media. A man on TikTok started a debate about ghosting when he “politely” sent a breakup text to a woman he met through Hinge and briefly dated.

“It was great meeting you, I don’t think we are a great match though, have a good one!” he wrote in the text.

Some users in the comments praised him for sending the polite message rather than ghosting his match, while others said they preferred to get “ghosted” by their dates.

“I would rather be ghosted. Like we went on one date! You don’t owe me an explanation nor do I care to have one,” one viewer claimed. Another person said, “I only do this if they ask to hang out again, otherwise it’s not really necessary.”

The Independent has reached out to Ethan Keiser for comment.