Hinge’s CEO says AI is going to make mass swiping arcane

• Hinge CEO Justin McLeod said AI could enhance personalized matching in online dating.
• McLeod said the company is using AI but doesn’t want users to talk to chatbots.
• Hinge’s success is boosting confidence in online dating; it’s shown significant user and revenue growth.

There’s good news for daters — AI might make it easier to find the one.

In an interview with Fast Company released on Thursday, Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod said that AI could allow for much more personalized matching and spare users from endless swiping.

“Three to five years from now, probably sooner than that, honestly, it will feel relatively arcane to feel like you had to go through hundreds of profiles, if not more, in order to get out on a date,” McLeod said.

Hinge is owned by Match Group, which also operates dating apps like Tinder and OKCupid. In 2018, Match acquired Hinge, which McLeod cofounded in 2011.

McLeod said that communicating with dating apps right now is a bit like “trying to communicate your tastes and preferences to us using Morse code of likes and passes.”

“If you like someone, why did you like them? We don’t know,” he said. “If you pass on someone, we don’t really understand what it is that turned you off about that person.”

In the future, users could explain in their own words who they are, what their values are, and what matters to them, he said.

“Then use all that information to understand what type of person we think would be best for you,” he added.

While the dating app has been using AI for better matching and encouraging users to share more interesting answers, McLeod has made it clear that he doesn’t want people dating chatbots.

“I don’t think that an AI chatbot should be your friend or certainly not your boyfriend or girlfriend,” McLeod said in a podcast last month.

“It certainly shouldn’t be something that we start engaging with as an end in itself just for entertainment or, I would say, artificial intimacy or artificial connection,” he added.

It’s a sharp contrast from how consumer tech giant Meta has been touting the use of AI. In a May podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the average American now has fewer than three close friends and that digital chatbots could help cure this “loneliness epidemic.”

In June, McLeod called Zuckerberg’s comments an “extraordinarily reductive view” of friendship that misses the point of what building relationships is all about.

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.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment at the time.

Dating app fatigue

Hinge is being celebrated as a bright spot in the online dating industry, which is struggling to compete with swiping fatigue and the growing preference for in-person interactions.

On an earnings call last month, Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff said that Hinge’s success is giving him confidence in its sister app Tinder.

“Simply put, Hinge is crushing it,” Rascoff said. “Hinge’s success should put to rest any doubts about whether the online dating category is out of favor among users.”

The dating app’s paying users grew by 18% year over year to 1.7 million, and revenue per paying user grew 6% to nearly $32. Hinge generated $168 million in revenue in the second quarter, a 25% increase from the same time last year.

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