The chief executive of Hinge has sounded an alarm over Britain’s generational loneliness crisis, revealing that a growing number of single twentysomethings are turning to artificial intelligence to navigate the dating landscape. Justin McLeod, the founder of the dating app, told a tech conference in London that young adults are increasingly outsourcing their romantic lives to AI tools, from generating opening lines to planning entire dates, as traditional social skills atrophy.
“We are seeing a cohort that has been profoundly shaped by digital isolation,” McLeod said. “They are fluent in swiping but struggle with the messy, unpredictable nature of real-world connection. AI is becoming a crutch, and that should concern us all.”
His comments come amid a mounting body of research that shows loneliness among 18- to 30-year-olds in Britain has reached epidemic levels. A recent study by the Office for National Statistics found that one in four young adults reported feeling lonely “often or always”, the highest rate of any age group. The phenomenon has been dubbed the “Hinge generation”, a term that encapsulates the paradox of hyper-connectivity and profound social alienation.
McLeod’s warning is not a Luddite rant. He is, after all, the architect of an app that relies on algorithms to match millions of users. But he is acutely aware of the feedback loop that technology can create. “The more we rely on AI to do the heavy lifting of human interaction, the less we practise those skills,” he said. “It’s a muscle that atrophies if you don’t use it.”
The rise of generative AI has accelerated this trend. Apps such as ChatGPT are now used to craft witty bios, draft first messages and even suggest conversation topics. Some startups are developing chatbot “wingmen” that analyse real-time conversations and whisper suggestions into a user’s ear via wireless earbuds. The ultimate goal, proponents argue, is to reduce rejection anxiety and increase success rates.
But at what cost? McLeod worries that the quantification of romance is stripping away the very essence of connection: vulnerability. “When you let an AI write your opening line, you are delegating your authentic self,” he said. “The other person isn’t falling for you; they’re falling for a language model trained on millions of other profiles.”
The loneliness crisis is not merely a social ill; it has economic and political ramifications. A 2023 report from the Centre for Social Justice estimated that loneliness costs the UK economy £2.5 billion annually in lost productivity and health care costs. Politicians have begun to take notice, with the government appointing a Minister for Loneliness in 2018, a role that has since been criticised for lacking teeth.
Some technologists see a solution in more AI, not less. UCL researchers are developing “companion AI” that can sustain long-term conversations and even mimic empathy. The idea is to provide a safety net for those who feel unable to form human bonds. But critics warn that such tools could deepen the very problem they aim to solve, creating a generation that prefers the predictable comfort of algorithms over the messy reality of another person.
McLeod advocates for a middle path. He has introduced features on Hinge that encourage users to move from text to video chats and eventually to in-person meetings faster. The app now prompts users to share voice notes and video prompts, which he believes foster more authentic connections than curated photos.
“We need to design for humanity, not just for engagement metrics,” he said. “If our only goal is to keep people swiping, we are doing them a disservice.”
His message resonates beyond the dating industry. It touches on a broader anxiety about the role of AI in our lives. As we offload more cognitive tasks to machines, from navigation to conversation, we risk losing the very faculties that make us human. The Hinge boss’s warning is a timely reminder that technology should augment our social instincts, not replace them.
For now, the data shows that young Britons are increasingly willing to let AI play Cupid. Whether that leads to more love or more loneliness will depend on how wisely we wield the tools we build.
