AI in dating apps ‘a threat to authentic intimacy’

Navigating the world of dating apps can be tough enough on those looking for love, but academics say plans to introduce AI to help users craft their bios and hone their chat could make things even harder.

For the one in ten adults who used an online dating service in 2024, Luke Brunning from the Centre for Love, Sex and Relationships at the University of Leeds says the digital search for romance is fraught enough.

But after Match Group, which owns platforms including Tinder and Hinge, announced it was increasing investment in AI, he said he feared the course of true love may become even rougher and has written to the market-leading apps to urge caution.

“We should at least ask questions as a society about whether having tools writing things for us, changing our bios, editing our photos, whether that’s actually facilitating authentic intimacy,” he said.

“We should also think about whether that’s going to cause problems for people that maybe don’t usually use AI but find themselves in those spaces where it’s quite commonly used.

“It is very easy for tech companies to kind of just innovate, innovate, innovate, change, change, change. But there is no real ethical oversight.”

In a recent letter to shareholders, Match Group said it was “exploring several AI-driven features” including suggesting “shared interest-based date ideas when a conversation is ready to move from in-app to in-real-life”.

It anticipates that AI functions could be used to improve conversational quality and maintain interactions with multiple users at once.

Match Group said that it was “developing features that enhance individual expression and the authenticity of human connections” but did not use bots to chat with users.

A spokesperson said: “Our AI work is rooted in helping users better showcase their personality and put their best foot forward in presenting themselves to potential matches.

“We want to increase user confidence in the connections that they make online and help them meet in real life”.

By introducing AI, Dr Brunning fears that without proper regulation, some younger people and the elderly may be especially vulnerable.

“These are companies that are having a huge impact on how people communicate, connect, share intimate information online and have changed how everyone meets each other over the past 15 years,” he said.

“We need to have a think about all of this and think is this actually working for people?

“Is it having a negative impact on their mental health? And what should we do about it?”

App user Dani, 37, from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, said the overall consensus was that using dating apps could be damaging to people’s self-esteem.

“People are regularly deleting their dating apps for a break, that’s the new thing,” she said.

“I have been single for about two years now, and in that time I’ve seen a massive shift within the dating app world and it’s already unnatural enough without the use of AI.”

She explained: “You are thrust into a world where you have access to hundreds of people.

“You are spoilt for choice, as it were, you’re judging somebody based on their physical character before absolutely anything else and it is so fast-paced with the swiping – it takes away your emotions as a human because you’re treating others like an option and not actually a person.

“And then when you actually do match with somebody that you like, can you start that conversation?”

Dr Brunning and his research partner Dr Natasha McKeever hold regular discussion events to explore people’s experiences of using the apps, debating topics such as “ghosting” and “catfishing” – behaviour which can leave users with negative perceptions of app-based interactions.

Charlotte, 38, from Leeds, met her fiance on Hinge after using dating apps intermittently for about 10 years.

“Ghosting is a huge issue online, as the person you’re talking to can easily just start chatting with someone else and just ignore you,” she said.

“I experienced this multiple times with guys I really felt I had a rapport with and felt excited to meet.

“Before meeting my partner I had real anxiety attached to dating and I think it was the fear of rejection.”

She added: “I think both men and women now seem to think there might be a better offer so they can keep looking.”

Dr Sandra Wheatley, a social psychologist, said if dating app users were already “fragile” then adding AI into the mix may only make things worse.

“Who you are and who you portray yourself to be are kind of integral to starting a relationship with someone,” she said.

“And if you do not feel confident enough to be able to present yourself in a way that you think is attractive to other people, then you’re already in a fragile state of mind.

“To plant that seed of doubt [with AI] that what you’re seeing is not necessarily a person, but also that somebody else out there might be receiving a enhanced version of you that you’ve then got to try and live up to, that is going to be very damaging for your self-esteem.”

The four most popular dating apps in the UK – Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and Grindr – all lost UK users between May 2023 and May 2024, a report showed.

The same report found however that more than one in 10 UK online adults use online dating services, and they remain the most popular way of meeting a partner.

While academics in Leeds do not suggest we should abandon technology altogether, they admit the landscape has changed and there is a return to the desire of a “meet cute” in the street or in a bar.

But, with more innovation on the apps and a rise in in-person dating events, perhaps the future of dating will mean there is room for both.