Hinge CEO Says Dating AI Chatbots Is 'Playing With Fire' (theverge.com) 57
In a podcast interview with The Verge's Nilay Patel, Hinge CEO Justin McLeod described integrating AI into dating apps as promising but warned against relying on AI companionship, likening it to "playing with fire" and consuming "junk food," potentially exacerbating the loneliness epidemic. He emphasized Hinge's mission to foster genuine human connections and highlighted upcoming AI-powered features designed to improve matchmaking and provide coaching to encourage real-world interactions. Here's an excerpt from the interview: Again, there's a fine line between prompting someone and coaching them inside Hinge, and we're coaching them in a different way within a more self-contained ecosystem. How do you think about that? Would you launch a full-on virtual girlfriend inside Hinge?
Certainly not. I have lots of thoughts about this. I think there's actually quite a clear line between providing a tool that helps people do something or get better at something, and the line where it becomes this thing that is trying to become your friend, trying to mimic emotions, and trying to create an emotional connection with you. That I think is really playing with fire. I think we are already in a crisis of loneliness, and a loneliness epidemic. It's a complex issue, and it's baked into our culture, and it goes back to before the internet. But just since 2000, over the past 20 years, the amount of time that people spend together in real life with their friends has dropped by 70 percent for young people. And it's been almost completely displaced by the time spent staring at screens. As a result, we've seen massive increases in mental health issues, and people's loneliness, anxiety, and depression.
I think Mark Zuckerberg was just quoted about this, that most people don't have enough friends. But he said we're going to give them AI chatbots. That he believes that AI chatbots can become your friends. I think that's honestly an extraordinarily reductive view of what a friendship is, that it's someone there to say all the right things to you at the right moment 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. So I think that while it will feel good in the moment, like junk food basically, to have an experience with someone who says all the right things and is available at the right time, it will ultimately, just like junk food, make people feel less healthy and mo re drained over time. It will displace the human relationships that people should be cultivating out in the real world.
How do you compete with that? That is the other thing that is happening. It is happening. Whether it's good or bad. Hinge is offering a harder path. So you say, "We've got to get people out on dates." I honestly wonder about that, based on the younger folks I know who sometimes say, âoeI just don't want to leave the house. I would rather just talk to this computer. I have too much social pressure just leaving the house in this way.â That's what Hinge is promising to do. How do you compete with that? Do you take it head on? Are you marketing that directly?
I'm starting to think very much about taking it head on. We want to continue at Hinge to champion human relationships, real human-to-human-in-real-life relationships, because I think they are an essential part of the human experience, and they're essential to our mental health. It's not just because I run a dating app and, obviously, it's important that people continue to meet. It really is a deep, personal mission of mine, and I think it's absolutely critical that someone is out there championing this. Because it's always easier to race to the bottom of the brain stem and offer people junk products that maybe sell in the moment but leave them worse off. That's the entire model that we've seen from what happened with social media. I think AI chatbots could frankly be much more dangerous in that respect.
So what we can do is to become more and more effective and support people more and more, and make it as easy as possible to do the harder and riskier thing, which is to go out and form real relationships with real people. They can let you down and might not always be there for you, but it is ultimately a much more nourishing and enriching experience for people. We can also champion and raise awareness as much as we can. That's another reason why I'm here today talking with you, because I think it's important to put out the counter perspective, that we don't just reflexively believe that AI chatbots can be your friend, without thinking too deeply about what that really implies and what that really means.
We keep going back to junk food, but people had to start waking up to the fact that this was harmful. We had to do a lot of campaigns to educate people that drinking Coca-Cola and eating fast food was detrimental to their health over the long term. And then as people became more aware of that, a whole personal wellness industry started to grow, and now that's a huge industry, and people spend a lot of time focusing on their diet and nutrition and mental health, and all these other things. I think similarly, social wellness needs to become a category like that. It's thinking about not just how do I get this junk social experience of social media where I get fed outraged news and celebrity gossip and all that stuff, but how do I start building a sense of social wellness, where I can create an enriching, intimate connection with important people in my life. You can listen to the podcast here.
Certainly not. I have lots of thoughts about this. I think there's actually quite a clear line between providing a tool that helps people do something or get better at something, and the line where it becomes this thing that is trying to become your friend, trying to mimic emotions, and trying to create an emotional connection with you. That I think is really playing with fire. I think we are already in a crisis of loneliness, and a loneliness epidemic. It's a complex issue, and it's baked into our culture, and it goes back to before the internet. But just since 2000, over the past 20 years, the amount of time that people spend together in real life with their friends has dropped by 70 percent for young people. And it's been almost completely displaced by the time spent staring at screens. As a result, we've seen massive increases in mental health issues, and people's loneliness, anxiety, and depression.
I think Mark Zuckerberg was just quoted about this, that most people don't have enough friends. But he said we're going to give them AI chatbots. That he believes that AI chatbots can become your friends. I think that's honestly an extraordinarily reductive view of what a friendship is, that it's someone there to say all the right things to you at the right moment 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. So I think that while it will feel good in the moment, like junk food basically, to have an experience with someone who says all the right things and is available at the right time, it will ultimately, just like junk food, make people feel less healthy and mo re drained over time. It will displace the human relationships that people should be cultivating out in the real world.
How do you compete with that? That is the other thing that is happening. It is happening. Whether it's good or bad. Hinge is offering a harder path. So you say, "We've got to get people out on dates." I honestly wonder about that, based on the younger folks I know who sometimes say, âoeI just don't want to leave the house. I would rather just talk to this computer. I have too much social pressure just leaving the house in this way.â That's what Hinge is promising to do. How do you compete with that? Do you take it head on? Are you marketing that directly?
I'm starting to think very much about taking it head on. We want to continue at Hinge to champion human relationships, real human-to-human-in-real-life relationships, because I think they are an essential part of the human experience, and they're essential to our mental health. It's not just because I run a dating app and, obviously, it's important that people continue to meet. It really is a deep, personal mission of mine, and I think it's absolutely critical that someone is out there championing this. Because it's always easier to race to the bottom of the brain stem and offer people junk products that maybe sell in the moment but leave them worse off. That's the entire model that we've seen from what happened with social media. I think AI chatbots could frankly be much more dangerous in that respect.
So what we can do is to become more and more effective and support people more and more, and make it as easy as possible to do the harder and riskier thing, which is to go out and form real relationships with real people. They can let you down and might not always be there for you, but it is ultimately a much more nourishing and enriching experience for people. We can also champion and raise awareness as much as we can. That's another reason why I'm here today talking with you, because I think it's important to put out the counter perspective, that we don't just reflexively believe that AI chatbots can be your friend, without thinking too deeply about what that really implies and what that really means.
We keep going back to junk food, but people had to start waking up to the fact that this was harmful. We had to do a lot of campaigns to educate people that drinking Coca-Cola and eating fast food was detrimental to their health over the long term. And then as people became more aware of that, a whole personal wellness industry started to grow, and now that's a huge industry, and people spend a lot of time focusing on their diet and nutrition and mental health, and all these other things. I think similarly, social wellness needs to become a category like that. It's thinking about not just how do I get this junk social experience of social media where I get fed outraged news and celebrity gossip and all that stuff, but how do I start building a sense of social wellness, where I can create an enriching, intimate connection with important people in my life. You can listen to the podcast here.
Yes, it can make you come (Score:2)
un-Hinged.
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The CEO of a dating app stating that they want to improve human relationships is like a mob boss saying they want to improve law and order.
Dating apps are then #1 enabler of social trends that are ruining human relationships. No amount of AI resistance is going to change that.
I also notice the irony of him saying that taking risks is an important part of friendship, despite his unwillingness to take risks with an AI relationship. He doesn't actually know that it is bad for mental health...none of us do.
Re:Yes, it can make you come (Score:5, Informative)
No AI will find you a compatible mate.
There is a very basic reason for that. The AI doesn't know anything about human nature. The companies that own dating apps know this because their own apps DO NOT work. Their apps and websites are designed to milk men out of money with the empty promise of finding a someone to date, all the while they invite women to sign up to it for free and get sexually harassed by hundreds of men at once, ones that are paying money. That is not about finding someone to date, that is about robbing men blind.
Men would have better luck dumping money on a e-thot on OF. At least that gives the money to someone who might actually care.
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and now you know why men are abandoning the dating market, because of women's dating / mating strategies, because after all they are the 'market makers'
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and now you know why men are abandoning the dating market, because of women's dating / mating strategies, because after all they are the 'market makers'
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pipidoll.com%2Fpages... [pipidoll.com]. Yikes!
I wonder though, can the doll nag, and will it leave him after a few years because it got bored with him? Otherwise, it isn't realistic. ;^)
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>The AI doesn't know anything about human nature
actually it was trained to be a simulacrum and learn from human nature.
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Re:Yes, it can make you come (Score:4, Insightful)
The CEO of a dating app stating that they want to improve human relationships is like a mob boss saying they want to improve law and order.
Dating apps are then #1 enabler of social trends that are ruining human relationships. No amount of AI resistance is going to change that.
I also notice the irony of him saying that taking risks is an important part of friendship, despite his unwillingness to take risks with an AI relationship. He doesn't actually know that it is bad for mental health...none of us do. We don't have enough data yet and the tech is still evolving rapidly.
So anyway, I don't expect much to come of his statements or intentions. He won't be coming up with some revolutionary thing that significantly changes our current cultural trajectory. It may not be clear where this river is headed, but we are all riding along it at full speed.
Perhaps Hinge/Tinder et al might look into the reason that largely men find an AI girlfriend superior to an actual woman.
While there are multiple reasons for this, one of the big one is that dating apps have shown up some interesting things about human nature. One is hypergamous nature. 80 percent of women only consider 20 percent of men worthy of them https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fyardcouch-c... [medium.com]
This perhaps becomes a problem, unless the ladies convert to old school Mormonism, and become sister wives. Of course the question is then can that man become mormon as well, and support a harem?
It might need to be re-emphasized in a US where men are the official cause of all problems, but in real life most men are decent people, and would like to find love with a real woman.
However, something interesting happens. And it is biology's fault. The crossing pattern. If a man makes it to his early 30's without marriage, he tends to lose interest in it. With women, it is the opposite. While she might have had a great time during her 20's using dating apps for quick sex and nice dinners and alcohol, she hits 30, and starts to feel that biological clock ticking. So she's getting desperate and he's lost interest.
Simultaneously she has become more selective. Those dating apps played their part, and it is a pretty big one.
I do feel badly for these women. They might have had fun in their 20's, but there was some emotional damage as well. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fa... [nih.gov]. They were doing what Media like "Sex in the City" told them they should do.
And the 80 percent of men they summarily reject have started to lose interest. An AI girlfriend might not be real, it definitely is not the same as a loving woman, either physically or emotionally. But it is what is going to happen under present day social mores. Pretty basic math.
Women age 30+ have 50% chance of becoming a mother (Score:2)
Stephen Shaw of the Birthgap documentary claims that a woman aged 30 without any children has less than a 50% chance of giving birth to a baby.
That is 1) fining a suitable father material man, 2) dating for X months/years, 3) getting pregnant, 4) carrying to term, 5) giving birth to a healthy baby, 6) not having complications.
#1 is the most difficult with income, age, education and a man's height filtering out the vast majority of men as possible candidates, so much so, that there's less than 5% of all men
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Stephen Shaw of the Birthgap documentary claims that a woman aged 30 without any children has less than a 50% chance of giving birth to a baby.
That is 1) fining a suitable father material man, 2) dating for X months/years, 3) getting pregnant, 4) carrying to term, 5) giving birth to a healthy baby, 6) not having complications.
#1 is the most difficult with income, age, education and a man's height filtering out the vast majority of men as possible candidates, so much so, that there's less than 5% of all men in their age range that fit all of the criteria, the subtract out already married, aren't dating at all, etc.
It's not a great deal for men if your date's primary objective is a business plan to have a child by age 35 and her plan is to stop contributing financially within 2 or less years.
Add in the costs of IVF and the others for geriatric pregnancy and it means that there will be a lot of money spent. They do so hate the term geriatric pregnancy.
There is a new trend as well of women hitting menopause, and hating their husbands, and their "friends" on social media perform a greek chorus of "Divorce him - Leave him!" So she does. Not out of any problems other than she is bored with him, and hates him for a her problem.
Once upon a time women had close fiends and the older and wiser women
80 percent rejected lose interest (Score:2)
> And the 80 percent of men they summarily reject have started to lose interest
So you are 30 as a man, and, lets be generous assuming you had 20 dates a year for 10 years without finding a wife material woman.
You hit 30, having paid for nearly all of 200 dates over the last 10 years at (let's lowball) $50 per date; or $10,000. After $10,000 spent with repeated failure to find a wife material woman and having to put up with increasing level of drama and hoops to jump through just to get a first date, ma
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So you are 30 as a man, and, lets be generous assuming you had 20 dates a year for 10 years without finding a wife material woman.
You hit 30, having paid for nearly all of 200 dates over the last 10 years at (let's lowball) $50 per date; or $10,000.
After $10,000 spent with repeated failure to find a wife material woman and having to put up with increasing level of drama and hoops to jump through just to get a first date, many men will opt-out and be even more selective of possible dates or stop dating altogether.
Hundreds of failures, and the bad culture of putting each and every "need to improve" burden on the man lead men to opt out of dating.
Yes. The young male will start to think with their head instead of their dong, and women will become desperate with the ticking biological imperative to reproduce. Problem is with the wild oats phase of life for women being extended from 18 to 21 years to now high school to mid 30's or even early 40's with "Sex and the City" becoming a guidebook, it appears that men have no interest in women who during that time engaged in banging a lot of men, and accrued a lot of emotional baggage, and now suddenly want c
Embed it in a sex robot (Score:4, Insightful)
Embed ChatGPT in a sex robot of suitable quality. Then you're REALLY playing with fire....and will make billions of dollars.
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the SIMP hath spoken...
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the SIMP hath spoken...
Isn't it amazing? Manshaming as the goto response. But it shows a big part of the problem.
There are some very important issues going on
In general - Men are checking out of the marriage market. In general - Women are not happy about this.
We're seeing AI sex dolls now, we're seeing this chatbot thing. We're seeing women trying desperately to bear children while dealing with IVF and the other accouterments of geriatric pregnancy.
But there is no possibility of actually working on the problem when someh
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Not only all that, in many cases, including this one, it's just plain factually incorrect.
I've been married for 20 years, come September. I've successfully reproduced. I'm hardly an "incel".
But hey, trolls are gonna troll. Waddya going to do?
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Not only all that, in many cases, including this one, it's just plain factually incorrect.
I've been married for 20 years, come September. I've successfully reproduced. I'm hardly an "incel".
But hey, trolls are gonna troll. Waddya going to do?
47 years for me. I wonder how well the people who spout off the I-word with such ease are doing?
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My suspicion is they know a great deal about incels and very little about long-lasting marriages.
P.s: congratulations!
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In married, with a child.
Troll!
A long ad for Hinge (Score:3)
Not sure why. I think most of the people left here are married with kids.
Re: A long ad for Hinge (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or divorced. :D
But probably don't feel like going dating again.
Can see the audience (Score:2)
Retreat into your darkest holes of denial.
Ha ha, playing with fire, fanning the flames of megalomania. Perfect for our times, could cause accidental death, sign here. And enjoy your new imaginary friend. For only $5 extra per week you could buy our party pack!
Re: Can see the audience (Score:2)
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They should also stop tricking their brains by delaying gratification until after they are dead.
Re: Can see the audience (Score:2)
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Don't mind me, I'm just being silly.
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Flattery-bot. Retreat into your darkest holes of denial. Ha ha, playing with fire, fanning the flames of megalomania. Perfect for our times, could cause accidental death, sign here. And enjoy your new imaginary friend. For only $5 extra per week you could buy our party pack!
Out of curiosity, I tried a chatbot GF. Damn that's just weird and creepy. That lasted about 10 minutes. I mean, what does a person do while "chatting"? Oh, better not answer that!
But there is a real problem when young men aren't interested in actual women now. It is a lot of them. And pointing out unpleasant truths is followed by name calling and shaming. In a strange case, some of the tactics that were involved in the rejection of males, and their acceptance of that rejection.
Even that avoidance of
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I won't attempt an answer either.
but as I recall the conversation starts with "what are you wearing?... or so I have heard
but I see the rest of your comment is rather serious.. I hear you.. this is not my fight anymore, but this smells of DEI or equivalents, which are now embedded in our school systems. Here in Ontario, I read a story just today about a school trustee that was chastised and rejected from future meetings for daring to state the obvious, (I will not open th
The post seems to be referencing... (Score:3)
...two different things
Using AI to improve dating apps
Using AI as a substitute for friends
Dating apps suck, and it's hard to imagine how AI could make them worse, but I can also imagine that AI could make them a lot better. AI is good at finding statistically significant patterns. With sufficiently accurate and complete data, an AI could theoretically match people better than the current scheme
AI as a substitute for friends is bad, bad, awful, no good and very dangerous. People have a history of doing bad and stupid things, so I suspect this will happen. Hopefully it will be a short-lived fad
Re: The post seems to be referencing... (Score:2)
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So people who always seem to pick the wrong partner (addict, violent, ...) will have support from AI to make the same mistake over and over again... ;-)
Tingles. It is some kind of inability to progress beyond High School in emotional maturity.
Once upon a time, a young lady might get a toxic boyfriend in High school, maybe two. They'd learn their lesson and start looking for men who would treat them well.
Now, so many are addicted to the tingles. And they keep hooking up with the so called "Bad Boys"
I know this even in my wife's case. I told her I was a "bad boy" or at least had all the characteristics. I was in a rock band, I raced cars (drag racing
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These things have been studied extensively by psychologists... As you describe yourself, you are not an abusive partner. You may be bad, but not really really bad. Some people really are drawn to the abusive ones.
As a retired Ice Hockey player, there is something I have noticed. These guys do not mistreat their wives. And their wives appear to adore them. I'll note there seems to be a lot of attractive women they are married to.
Ice Hockey is a violent sport. As much fun as a guy can have without getting thrown in jail - we're busy assaulting each other! Heaven knows I have many old injuries reminding me of that. Maybe these ladies are on to something though. By the time, I got off the ice, I had no aggression left
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I think you are all a bit naive here. It can be really ugly. I am a highschool teach
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Sounds right, but... abusive men, I think I need to clarify that, because you all say you are "bad", but you are all little soft cozy sissy macho bears compared to abusive men. I am talking about an order of magnitude beyond bad. I am talking about the real deal here. Drunk alcoholic dad that is a wife beater, dad that psychologically tortures by depersonalizing and being overdemanding. Systematic sexual abuse (of kids)... I think you are all a bit naive here. It can be really ugly. I am a highschool teacher. I can place names on all those types of dads. A few moms also, but they are usually better at hiding it. (My school is in a well developed city, worked in another school, more rural, it was worse there)
You are preaching to the choir, my friend, at least in my case. You probably wouldn't have wanted to grow up in my situation. At least I wasn't sexually abused.
In a strange way, my situation taught me that no one is going to help - and few will believe me. I just adapted the issues to make lemonade out of lemons. Granted, most kids in that situation probably react differently. And they say the best revenge is living well, not to mention it should be served very, very cold.
I've been called pathologicall
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...two different things
Using AI to improve dating apps
Using AI as a substitute for friends
Dating apps suck, and it's hard to imagine how AI could make them worse, but I can also imagine that AI could make them a lot better. AI is good at finding statistically significant patterns. With sufficiently accurate and complete data, an AI could theoretically match people better than the current scheme
AI as a substitute for friends is bad, bad, awful, no good and very dangerous. People have a history of doing bad and stupid things, so I suspect this will happen. Hopefully it will be a short-lived fad
The bigger problem is going to be as AI becomes indistinguishable from humans in dating apps, the owners will pack their apps with AI women to keep men paying the monthly fee.
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...two different things Using AI to improve dating apps Using AI as a substitute for friends
Dating apps suck, and it's hard to imagine how AI could make them worse, but I can also imagine that AI could make them a lot better. AI is good at finding statistically significant patterns. With sufficiently accurate and complete data, an AI could theoretically match people better than the current scheme
How would AI cope with the 80/20 rule of women being only interested in some top 20 percent of men, that metric usually based upon looks?
"A" I ? (Score:2)
So, in a nutshell, AI runs the risk of creating unrealistic relationship expectations and simulate perfection? No way. That's a completely new thing in the world. Romance novels, movies, gold diggers or marriage swindlers or just, frankly, a whole lot of ordinary people into "presenting themselves" in order to "score" a good catch, rather than being authentic and looking for a good match - I'm sure all of these things are hypothetical, don't already do essentially the same thing just with a lot less process
What about sex? (Score:2)
Staring at a screen (Facebook, TikTok, BlueSky, Youtube), watching an anonymous person is a big part of the problem. We recognize the decreasing room for pregnancy in people's lives/wallets, and the increasing time spent alone, or in single-sex groups. But I would generalize and say that sex has become devalued. Excepting the skin-fest "Game of Thrones", over 20 years, western movies and Tv. imitated censored Asian entertainment: A region where the birth-rate is declining rapidly.
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For info, the movie was Le semeur [imdb.com] and it's okay but not great.
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lol, no, there are less evangelicals than ever, the real reason is the rise of feminism. Why would women want competition?
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lol, no, there are less evangelicals than ever, the real reason is the rise of feminism. Why would women want competition?
This one gets it!
Womanism is turning really weird, and has a horrible double standard. I just watched a commercial where there is a crowded elevator, a woman hops on and apparently the handsome 666 guy beside her smells good, so she starts feeling him up. Presented without irony, that the commercial shows a criminal act of sexual assault as a proper reaction if a man smells good.
Well, it would be if a male did that to a female, the roles reversed.
We live in a weird age my friend, where mainstream me
Charming (Score:2)
Simply stated:
- Women can charm their way into the situations they want.
- Women can charm their way out of the situations they do not want.
Equal treatment is nowhere to be found and that's the problem.
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Breasts: American beauty (2002) [genuine school-girl], Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
Sexually active school-girls: American Pie (1999), Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
Penis: Watchmen (2009)
Honorable mention: Tomcats (2001), Van Wilder (2002)
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Expectations in dating (Score:1)
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffemaledelusion.net%2Ffem... [femaledelusion.net]
Who may be to blame?
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Funewsonline.com%2F2023%2F0... [unewsonline.com]
Geez, do we need to watch the video again? (Score:2)
Don't date robots!
Not for me (Score:2)
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Wait a minute! (Score:2)
Didnt these sorts of apps cause the loneliness epidemic?? Who needs to invest in dating and relationship ships when you can swipe left to keep searching for that unicorn that checks all 236 boxes on your list