Picking the best photos for your dating profile can be difficult, so Tinder created a virtual curator to help you out. The AI-powered Photo Selector will scan your list of potential photos right from your phone and suggest the ones its model predicts will show you at your best.
To use this feature, a Tinder user takes a selfie to let the AI know what they look like, and then allows the app to look at photos on their phone. The AI model selects images for the user to review and decide whether to add them to their profile. Photo Selector will first be available to Tinder users in the US this month and will roll out internationally later this summer.
Tinder hopes that the AI tool will make it easier to create a dating profile. According to its own online opinion survey of young singles, 52% have difficulty choosing a profile picture for dating apps, and singles under 25 spend an average of 33 minutes choosing a photo for their dating app profile. Perhaps it is no surprise then that 68% of them welcome the idea of having AI help them choose their photos.
While Tinder doesn't say it outright, the study does suggest that straight men in particular need help. Single straight women find profiles with at least four pictures that highlight a man's personality more attractive, and more than one headshot increases the likelihood of a man matching by 71%.
“We’re proud to be the first dating app to implement an AI tool that can make the profile creation experience much simpler — an area we know is one of the most difficult parts of dating,” Tinder CEO Faye Iosotaluno said in a statement. “As a category leader, we’re striving to define the best industry use cases for meaningful consumer AI integrations.”
Discrete AI
Tinder hasn't made much of the privacy issue in relation to this new feature, although the access and use of personal photos by AI models may make some people nervous. Users could inadvertently expose sensitive or private images by granting the app access to their camera rolls. The company has data protection policies and security measures in place, but when it comes to something as intimate as photos for dating apps, it's easy to imagine some people questioning whether there isn't enough transparency and trust in how images are used, stored, and protected.
That’s on top of the facial recognition element. While successfully selecting photos is necessary, the biometric data involved is arguably even more sensitive. Tinder might have to go the extra mile to assure users that their data is anonymized when processed by AI and not shared with third parties. Still, as AI assistants and related tools become more ubiquitous, the ones that help people’s online profiles stand out — whether on dating apps or elsewhere — are likely to become very common.
“As demonstrated by our photo selection feature, we are developing AI technology to help you make decisions, not make them for you,” Iosotaluno said.
