AI Ranked Choi Daniel Last in Popularity on Gugidong Friends — His Reaction Said Everything

Choi Daniel was not expecting to come last. On a preview clip from Episode 5 of tvN's variety show "Gugidong Friends" (구기동 프렌즈), the actor and his two male co-stars submitted themselves to an AI-powered popularity analysis — a format the show framed as preparation for an upcoming group blind date. The AI evaluated all three men and ranked them by dating appeal. Jang Geun-suk came first. An Jae-hyun landed second. Choi Daniel finished last, with specific recommendations from the system that he adopt a lighter smile and consider wearing more formal clothing.

His immediate response was to point at An Jae-hyun: "If we're judging by face, it would be Jae-hyun." Then the science YouTuber Gwido (궤도), who appeared as a guest to facilitate the AI styling session, leaned over and quietly delivered the actual ranking. The composure disappeared. Choi Daniel's expression shifted, and the question that followed — "What's this guy's name?" — drew the kind of laughter from the assembled cast that usually means a clip is going to travel.

What 'Gugidong Friends' Is

For viewers outside Korea, "Gugidong Friends" is a tvN reality variety format built around a shared-living premise. Six celebrities — An Jae-hyun, Jang Geun-suk, Choi Daniel, Gyeong Su-jin (경수진), Lee Da-hee (이다희), and Jang Do-yeon (장도연) — cohabitate in a house in Gugidong and work through a shared list of "bucket list" experiences, most of which involve situations none of them would typically sign up for voluntarily.

The cast is assembled with some deliberateness. An Jae-hyun and Jang Geun-suk are actors with long careers who carry a certain cultural weight in Korean entertainment. Choi Daniel has been a familiar face across Korean television for years. Gyeong Su-jin, Lee Da-hee, and Jang Do-yeon bring a combination of industry credibility and comedic sensibility. What makes the format work is less the individual profiles than the chemistry of putting these particular people in the same confined space.

The Science YouTuber and the AI Analysis

Gwido is known in Korean online culture as the science communicator behind the YouTube channel "궤도" (Orbit). His expertise is in physics and popularizing scientific concepts for general audiences — making him an unconventional but appropriate choice for the episode's AI-dating-advice conceit. Having a scientist administer what is essentially a digital attractiveness ranking creates a specific kind of absurd formality that the show leans into effectively.

The AI's methodology and what data it actually evaluated are not detailed in the preview — which is part of the joke. The ranking arrives with the gravity of a scientific finding, delivered by a physicist, accepted momentarily as authoritative before the human reactions make it clear that nobody actually wanted an honest assessment. The format is familiar from other variety contexts, but the specific combination of Gwido's scientific credibility and the men's varying responses elevates it.

Jang Geun-suk's first-place reaction was immediately memorable. He stood up. He asked if anyone wanted to see him dance. The self-satisfied response of someone who has been officially validated by an algorithm was played with exactly the right level of theatrical certainty. Gyeong Su-jin's worry, reportedly expressed to other cast members, that this confirmation might make him "too arrogant to live with" added a layer to the moment that will likely pay off in later episodes.

Choi Daniel's History With This Kind of Moment

Choi Daniel has been in Korean entertainment long enough to have been through several cycles of public perception. He is known as someone who engages with variety formats with genuine responsiveness rather than calculated management — which makes his real-time reactions to unexpected moments consistently watchable.

The AI ranking situation put him in territory that required a choice: absorb the result quietly, which would have been uninteresting, or react in a way that was honest enough to be funny without tipping into genuine embarrassment. The "What's this guy's name?" delivery suggests he found the right register almost immediately. The frustration was real enough to be recognizable as genuine, contained enough not to make the clip uncomfortable to watch.

The AI's specific recommendations — lighter smile, more formal clothing — are also well-calibrated comedy fodder. They're not criticisms that would sting in any lasting way, but they're specific enough to feel like something generated by an actual system rather than a scripted joke. Whether or not the recommendations are technically defensible by whatever logic the AI used, they give Choi Daniel something to respond to, which is what the format needed.

Previous Episodes and What to Expect

The show has already established a pattern of using AI and technology as disruptive elements in otherwise personal situations. Episode 4, which aired May 1, featured a prank where the male cast members used AI-generated images — specifically a fake photograph of pigeons invading the rooms of Lee Da-hee and Jang Do-yeon — to stage a hidden-camera moment while the women were away. Lee Da-hee, described as fastidiously clean, reportedly ran back to the house at full speed upon seeing the image.

That episode's prank was relatively contained. The AI popularity ranking in Episode 5 has broader implications for house dynamics, since it implicitly ranks the three men against each other in a category that matters to most people: perceived attractiveness. The fact that the ranking was delivered by a scientist rather than a producer or a show segment adds a patina of seriousness that makes the deflation funnier when it arrives.

Jang Geun-suk has also provided material worth following. His revealed ideal type — "someone whose smile is pretty and who is put-together" — surfaced in Episode 4 coverage and has generated its own discussion about whether he is secretly dating. The show has been comfortable leaving those threads open rather than resolving them, which tends to keep audience engagement higher across episodes.

Why This Format Resonates

"Gugidong Friends" operates in a space that Korean variety television has refined over decades: the managed discomfort of celebrities navigating situations they can't fully control. The best moments in these formats aren't the planned segments but the genuine reactions — the expression on Choi Daniel's face when the ranking lands, the speed at which Lee Da-hee's cleaning instincts override every other consideration.

What makes the AI-ranking segment work as a clip is precisely that nobody performs well in it in the conventional sense. Jang Geun-suk's celebration is too large to be graceful. Choi Daniel's frustration is too real to be polished. An Jae-hyun's second-place finish is neither a triumph nor a loss. The algorithm has flattened them all into a number, and their responses reveal something true about each of them — which is as good an argument as any for why the format keeps finding audiences.

Episode 5 of "Gugidong Friends" airs on tvN. The full AI analysis, and whatever follows from it, will be available to viewers when the episode broadcasts. Based on the preview, the blind date preparation will almost certainly not go entirely as planned.