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Hinge CEO Justin McLeod said he doesn’t believe artificial intelligence is the cure for the loneliness plaguing young people.
McLeod had much to say about AI’s role in dating during a recent interview with Nilay Patel on the “Decoder” podcast. The Hinge founder, who’s been skeptical about using AI for dating, is adamant that it can’t fully replace human connections.
His stance contrasts with that of another leader who built a business on online social interactions: Mark Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO recently said in an interview with podcast host Dwarkesh Patel that “the average person has demand for meaningfully more” friends, and suggested AI could fill that demand.
McLeod disagrees with the sentiment that “AI chatbots can become your friend,” he said on the podcast published Monday, pointing to Zuckerberg’s remarks.
McLeod said that “extraordinarily reductive view” of friendship misses the point of what building relationships is all about.
“The most rewarding parts of being in a friendship are being able to be there for someone else, to risk and be vulnerable, to share experiences with other conscious entities,” McLeod said.
While an AI friend might say all the right things and be available at the right time, unlike a human friend, the relationship likely won’t feel good in the long run, he said.
“It ultimately, just like junk food, will make people feel over time, like less healthy, more drained, and will displace human relationships that they should be out cultivating in the real world,” he said.
Hinge won’t be getting virtual romantic partners powered by AI, McLeod said.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is going all in on AI on the social platforms he runs. The tech giant launched Meta AI as a stand-alone app in April. It featured AI assistant tools and a scrollable feed where creators can share AI-generated images of themselves. Zuckerberg told Dwarkesh that it’s still “very early” in the field responsible for AI girlfriends and therapists that can behave and look like humans.
Not all of Meta’s AI efforts have been wins. It rolled out AI assistants that featured the likenesses of celebrities like Kendall Jenner and posted AI-generated content until it shut down the celebrity accounts in 2024, after less than a year. On the “This Past Weekend” podcast in April, he said that AI “probably” won’t replace real-life connections.
“There are all these things that are better about physical connections when you can have them,” Zuckerberg told host Theo Von. “But the reality is that people just don’t have the connections, and they feel more alone a lot of the time than they would like.”
McLeod said the idea that AI could solve loneliness and create an “emotional connection” is dangerous.
“That, I think, is really playing with fire,” he told Patel. The loneliness epidemic, as he called it, is exacerbated by screens and the internet, resulting in “mental health issues.”
Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Where AI meets Hinge
Despite his stance on chatbots mimicking emotions, McLeod said there are useful ways to incorporate AI into Hinge’s technology.
He sees two main areas where AI can improve the dating experience.
“It’s going to move much closer to the experience of working with a personal matchmaking service,” he said, of one approach. That could allow users to speak more directly to Hinge about what they’re looking for in a partner to build a curated list of their most compatible matches.
He also sees the potential for an AI dating coach to help people get over hurdles, like preparing for a first date or crafting their dating profiles. For example, Hinge has a trained model that gives feedback on users’ answers to prompts displayed on their profiles, he said.
“We can give people those nudges so they write good prompts, so that they choose good photos,” McLeod said.
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