AI at Hinge | Our Principles

At Hinge, we are committed to safe, ethical and responsible innovation. We believe in using AI to help daters intentionally connect; we don’t believe AI should distract you from finding authentic and meaningful connections, or be used to turn your dating journey into a game. Today, we use AI to help enhance your app experience, and we are exploring ways to integrate Generative AI in the future. Below are the principles that guide AI at Hinge and help daters get off the app and onto great dates.

01. Explainability

We believe you should be able to easily understand the purpose of our app features and how they improve your dating experience. We use AI in service of helping you date with intention. Our commitment to explainability also means we strive to be transparent when we can’t tell you everything you may want to know.

Currently, Hinge only uses AI to make informed predictions about who might be a good match for you on your journey to find love, while also helping keep our community safe from harm.

How does AI at Hinge work?

Recommendation Algorithms
Our recommendation algorithms are designed to help compatible daters find each other and get on great dates. We suggest people based on the preferences each dater sets in the app (such as age, distance, family plans and more), who you are likely to like, and who we believe will like you back – all based on previous interactions. Your interactions with other daters - who you send comments to, who you’re having conversations with, who you’re intentionally engaging with – may all be used to continually adjust the predictions as the recommendation algorithms learn more about your preferences and mutual compatibility.

Our Most Compatible feature (which runs on a combination of machine learning and the Nobel-prize-winning Gale Shapley algorithm) suggests daters recommended by the algorithm - with the goal of getting all daters out on great dates. Your Most Compatible feed refreshes every 24 hours based on your latest activity, such as any updated preferences, dealbreakers, and profiles recently liked or skipped.
Risk Detection
At Hinge, we use algorithms to help identify potential harm (like scamming and harassment) so our Trust & Safety teams can quickly remove accounts that violate our Terms of Service. We have a combination of both human moderators and AI-based moderation tools that help maintain the safety of the Hinge platform and the integrity of the Hinge community.

What about Generative AI?

Generative AI is a more advanced form of AI that uses prompts or inputs to create new text, photos and other rich media content. Today, Hinge only uses non-generative AI to enhance your app experience, and we are exploring ways to integrate Generative AI in safe and responsible ways in the future. Our principles apply to all forms of AI at Hinge - today and in the future.

At Hinge, your privacy is a top priority. Protecting your privacy is core to the way we design and build the services and features you know and love, so that you can focus on building meaningful connections. Learn more about how we interact with your data in our Privacy Policy.

If you would like to view your data, you can do so at any time by submitting a data request directly in the app or by following instructions outlined in our Help Center.

What do we expect of you, our daters?

At Hinge, we believe that a community empowered with the right information is an integral part of maintaining the trust and safety of all community members. If you encounter another dater who makes you feel unsafe, or who you believe may be using AI in a manner that is in violation with these principles, please use the in-app reporting tools to tell our Trust & Safety teams about your concerns so together we can continue to help keep the Hinge community safe.

As part of our commitment to protecting your privacy, our moderators will not read your conversations with other daters unless necessary for us to help keep our community safe from harm or to respond to platform safety and/or legal inquiries. More information can be found in our Help Center under Member Principles, Expectations, & Reporting.

02. Authenticity

At Hinge, we believe that authenticity is critical to forming lasting, meaningful connections. AI should not come at the expense of daters' safety or their ability to discern fact from fiction. Additionally, it’s important for every Hinge dater to show up as an open and sincere version of themselves.

If you decide to include generative AI images, audio, or video in your profile, it should not be used to misrepresent yourself or your intentions. Per our Terms of Service, you are required to:

Include at least one photo with your face and/or face and body on your profile that is not generated by AI or otherwise heavily altered. This helps ensure our daters know what to expect when they meet IRL.
Only share or use text that was written by you (our Terms of Service prohibit the use of text that has been automatically generated or written by others).
Make sure any generative AI content complies with our AI Principles, our Terms of Service and our Member Principles.

Tell me more

The safety and authenticity of our users will always be a top priority at Hinge. We hold ourselves to this standard of authenticity, and we expect Hinge daters to use the app authentically by showing up as the most sincere version of themselves.
There are countless ways to showcase your personality on Hinge. While we don’t prohibit the use of generative AI images, audio or video at Hinge, our goal is to ensure daters use AI to encourage meaningful human connections and dating with intention so all Hinge daters can get out on real dates, find love, and delete the app.
We expect you to communicate authentically. When you agree to our Terms of Service, you agree to not share or upload text that was not written by you or was automatically generated, unless expressly authorized by Hinge.

03. Equity

At Hinge, we believe that all daters should have a just and fair experience, regardless of their lived experiences or backgrounds. We strive to build AI that encourages equitable outcomes, and we are committed to supporting all communities and groups of people on their journey to find love.

We acknowledge that there are disparities in the world, and that a commitment to not cause harm is not the same as making things better. We believe that no group should experience unjust preferential treatment or increased marginalization as a result of AI at Hinge.

How do we make good on that commitment?

We want AI features to benefit the Hinge community and facilitate better outcomes for marginalized and underserved groups. Our team rigorously tests new AI-enabled functionality prior to launch to help ensure new in-app experiences are designed to improve all daters’ experiences on Hinge.
Before we launch any new AI-enabled features, we work to understand how the features might impact diverse groups (e.g. LGBTQIA+ daters, BIPOC daters and more) to identify and mitigate risks and potential bias. We continually assess, use, adjust and improve AI features that may contribute to unintended or harmful outcomes. That has been, and will continue to be, our commitment to all our daters at Hinge.
We created the ethnicity preference option to support people of color looking to find a partner with shared cultural experiences and backgrounds. Daters from minority groups often have a disheartening experience on dating apps, such as spending more time searching for someone with similar values and lived experiences. Our ethnicity preference option is focused on helping daters spend less time in the app and more time focused on fostering meaningful connections. More information is available at our Help Center article.

What you can do to help protect our Community:

At Hinge, we’re committed to maintaining a community built on trust, safety and our AI Principles. If you have feedback on your experience or the experience of other Hinge daters, please share it with us by emailing hello@hinge.co.

If you feel you have experienced harm, harassment or content that you believe to be a violation of Hinge’s Terms of Service, Member Principles or our AI Principles, you can help protect yourself and the Hinge community by submitting a report in-app or here. More information can be found in our Help Center under Member Principles, Expectations, & Reporting.