Chapter 1: Why are people deleting dating apps?
This is a Triple J podcast. Apps don't make a profit if you find the love of your life. And the way to make a profit and money is by keeping you engaged.
Hello, hello, Dee Salmon with you and ready to chat all things love, sex, dating and relationships for the Hookup podcast. And a stat that Pip and I talk a lot on the Hookup, you've probably heard us say quite a bit, is that time that 93% of you told us on our Instagram at Triple J the Hookup that you're having a shitty time using dating apps. You're over it. You're hating the apps.
And we know that dating app burnout is a huge part of this. And research backs this. A 2024 Forbes survey found that nearly 80% of daters felt emotionally, physically or mentally exhausted by the apps, at least some of the time.
Chapter 2: What are the major issues with current dating apps?
And there's been a lot of articles and reports coming out recently saying that dating apps are kind of on the way out. They're actually dying. Bumble and other dating sites have really struggled in the past couple of years. It reported a 14% drop in total revenue and a 21% decline in paying users for the first quarter of this year compared to the same time last year.
And we know that Hinge as well has reported and Tinder massive significant declines. According to a Forbes health survey, 79% of Gen Z users reported dating app fatigue. And a 2025 study found that 77% of Gen Z adults in relationships met their partner in person and not actually through an app. So now this is something that apparently Bumble are trying to fix.
So Bumble's founder, Whitney Wolf Hurd, told Fortune that apps are rooted in rejection and judgment and that these are actually not healthy dynamics. So basically their answer is they're going to be testing an AI assistant called Bee that's basically aimed at understanding things like users' values and relationship goals and
So not a lot of details have actually been shared about how this will work. But basically, Whitney has said that users will still be able to write their own bios and profile details, but AI will be operating in the background. So what the hell is going on? Is AI the future of dating apps? Should we be worried? What are the privacy and data implications?
Is this going to make dating even more of a low effort culture? We're going to explore that all now with Dr. Raphael Chiarello. He's a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, a scholar of compassionate digital innovation, and his research examines ethical dilemmas in socio-technical change, focusing on AI companions, decentralized platforms, and public digital infrastructure.
So absolutely the most qualified person to talk about this today. Dr. Raph, thank you so much for coming on The Hookup.
Thanks so much for this awesome introduction. I'm really excited to be here.
So what was your initial reaction to this news, Raf?
So it was actually funny because I was just discussing it a few days earlier with my PhD students, Sarah Rubinstein and Angelina Chen. And my first reaction to this was actually to call it a catfishers paradise. And then my students said, hey, it's actually a chatfishers paradise, right? So that's kind of like what this is.
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Chapter 3: How is Bumble planning to use AI for matchmaking?
how dating, what has become of dating. And I always tell them, hey, I'm really glad that I'm old enough to have met my wife before dating has become a thing, right? So I was kind of
was kind of lucky enough to uh to have met found my love of my life just before that that happened now i think with ai we're gonna see a lot of change but it's not necessarily going to be better right so for one thing this commodification of intimacy is already something um i talked about with ai you know you could be cynical about this and say hey why don't we automate the whole process entirely right rather than just having an ai wingman
Why not digitalize the whole relationship? Have an AI marriage, have AI kids, go to AI couples therapy. It becomes a bit bizarre, but that is actually for a lot of people already the reality. And so I think it's really an opportune time for us to ask, what do we really want from a relationship? And how do we get there?
Yeah, I'm really keen to chat more about like the fact that, you know, they're saying that AI will help like optimize profiles and messages and matches. But does dating have to be more artificial? Because something that we talk a lot about on The Hookup is like attraction is actually something that's unconscious that we figure out face to face.
So yeah, what are your thoughts about how this will potentially make dating even more digital?
Of course, it already, pre-AI, has taken away a lot of the messiness, a lot of the intuition that is part of meeting someone, experiencing their voice, their smell, how they behave themselves, how their teeth are looking, and so on. All of this is not part of the dating experience. And I think that's what people are getting fatigued about.
But it's clear that because, according to some statistics, it's still more than half
the majority of people the majority of couples have found their partner online now even that was unthinkable half you know half a decade ago so it's kind of like paradoxical in the sense that a lot of people are turning to these apps at the same time they're getting fatigued from it i think part of the problem is just that relationships are complicated right it's not something that you can easily automate right and that has been true since the dawn of time right
relationships are messy humans can be difficult and sometimes it's the most frustrating thing you can experience it's also the most exhilarating thing you can experience right so you know digital Technologies can kind of help in you know figuring out what you might like and who might be a match and connecting people, but it doesn't automate the process.
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Chapter 4: What concerns arise with AI in dating apps?
And that can be exhilarating as well. I think in the context of a dating app, it's probably gonna be more like that. But in a sense, it's a little bit like with that wingman dynamic, right? So you have your digital wingman or wingwoman, a win being, and then that goes out and finds you potential matches. And that could be like multiple dopamine hits at once, right?
Because I imagine it like, okay, the app comes back to you and then gives you a list of people or introduces you maybe one after the other to potential matches. And then you just go ahead and you try to maximize for that, right? So like, I don't know, maybe it's a little bit of a male bias here, but I imagine that some people could go in there and say, hey,
you know, give me a dozen dates right at once. Right. And so that that is probably a dynamic that could be playing out in there. So it's a bit speculative. I can't exactly say how it's going to happen, but that's how I imagine it.
Yeah. We know that AI learns from our behavior, too, as well. So what do you think this will mean for like racial biases and beauty standards or like you were saying, like people saying, go out and find me this type of person? You know what I mean?
Thomas Kieffer- yeah excellent point, I think it's actually two sided like first. Thomas Kieffer- US, the one who initiates this you're also running the risk that the Ai might misunderstand you because the Ai it's ultimately the way how these systems work they're trained.
on historical data, which always only works for a very narrow slice of the population, typically white men or white rich people in the West, right? So if you're not in that demographic, you're already facing the first hurdle because the AI might not actually act in your best interest because it's trained on the wrong data.
Because it then goes out and does something based on the information you gave it and just kind of like based on the statistical patterns, gives that information to other people. And then, of course, in the selection process, it might also be biased and say, hey, oh, that person has the wrong gender, ethnicity or name or appearance. That's not exactly the right match. Right.
The thing with that is it's probably going to. mirror existing biases that we have. We know from dating research that people tend to prefer mates of a similar demographic. So they might be open to having friends from other ethnicities and demographics, but not so much for mates. That's just statistically a tendency. And so that dynamic might, of course, also
be part of what potential dates are selected for you, right? And then, you know, there's been all this talk about, you know, black women or Asian men being less successful. That's probably not going to improve much for them based on this logic, right?
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Chapter 5: Can AI improve dating experiences for marginalized groups?
Like it's like we've found ways to do things easier, connect us more around the world, and technology has kind of been like this net positive. And now it's this area where it's like, okay, is this actually helping us?
the human race and and can i say something yeah it might actually be controversial not sure if you're going to air this but i have a sense
that this is actually a western problem i'm seeing from a lot of people i work with in non-western context in asia and i'm actually planning to do a sabbatical in east asia next year to learn more about their views on ai companionship and dating i think this problem that technology is being used to exploit us and to benefit corporations that is a uniquely western phenomenon in the east in china you see a lot of
technology actually being used to help people they are building train lines they are building you know digital services and ai and regulating it in a way to benefit people right i think they've actually figured that out and maybe we can learn something from them that's why i'm
hoping to do that sabbatical next year oh i hope you do i hope you do and report back that would be so interesting but i guess that's such a difference between capitalists and communism right like that's so fascinating i would love to hear your yeah your time there if you if that does happen but um yeah dr raf this has been so interesting and we'll have to stay in touch because i'd love to hear more about all the work you and your students are doing it's so fascinating and like we've been saying we'll just keep growing so there'll be lots to talk about
yeah i really enjoyed this chat so thanks for having me and i'm definitely keen to return at some point
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