On Dating Apps, Men Turn to AI to Put Their Best Face Forward

Marissa, a 31-year-old marketing professional in Boston, went on the dating apps looking for love. Increasingly, she says, she is also looking for something else: photos that haven't been touched by artificial intelligence. She asked that her surname be withheld for privacy.

Most of what she sees is minor, the kind of fix Photoshop has long handled, such as cutting an ex out of a picture. Occasionally, though, a photo looks entirely generated. She described one she came across on Bumble of a man in a suit tiling a bathroom wall. "AI aside, I'm not sure what the appeal is there," she told CBS News. A giveaway for her is the face, which can look "waxy." Other flaws are more obvious, like a missing finger. But as the technology improves, telling real from generated is getting harder.

Marissa is not alone. Numerous women on TikTok say they have spotted what look like AI-generated photos of men on dating apps. Kathryn Coduto, an assistant professor at Boston University who studies dating apps, said in an email that people want authentic connections and conversations, and that AI has made them "more wary and skeptical of others, especially people they don't know." Filters and editing tools have always been part of the apps, but AI can produce high-quality images in seconds and, in some cases, invent whole scenes. Coduto noted that daters have only a few seconds to catch someone's attention, which may push them to make a photo look a little better than before. Men, she said, appear more interested in using AI for this than women. Her explanation is that women tend to get more matches and messages, so men have a harder time standing out.

Lana Li, a 37-year-old dating consultant in Brooklyn who writes the Substack "Love Me Like a Robot," calls herself a "digital stylist." She uses AI to change a client's outfit, hairstyle or shoes, and if she thinks his body language looks unconfident, she has ChatGPT adjust it. She also uses FaceApp to alter expressions, for instance lifting the corner of a mouth slightly so a man looks friendlier. She defends the work as long as the photos still represent who the person really is. She has limits: one client asked her to put his head on a marathon runner's body, and she refused. "I can't work with you if you want to not represent yourself accurately," she told him.

Two men who spoke to CBS News anonymously said they have used AI in their photos in ways they believe aren't misleading. One is a 30-year-old tech employee in New York City and a client of Li's. She used ChatGPT to put him in more professional clothing and tame his frizzy hair. "It's very subtle," he said, adding that he still looks like himself and does not want to catfish anyone.

The other, a New York City man in his 50s, gave photos of himself to the headshot generator Aragon.ai, which produced an image of him on a Manhattan rooftop with a sunset behind him. It quickly became his most-liked photo on Hinge. He acknowledged it may simply have been the first thing people saw, but said it was effective. Then Hinge banned him. He got his account back, but deleted the sunset photo, suspecting it was the cause.

Most major apps restrict AI-generated images. Hinge's AI policy says generative content should not be used to misrepresent yourself or your intentions, and its terms say automated tools and human reviewers look for and remove prohibited material. Users can report suspicious content confidentially. A spokesperson for Match Group, which owns Hinge, Tinder and other apps, said the company is watching closely as generative AI evolves, and that daters want more transparency, authenticity and confidence that a real person is on the other end.

Bumble also uses detection tools and user reporting. Its spokesperson said community guidelines bar "artificially generated photos or enhanced photos to deceive others," enforced through AI tools, human moderation, verification features and member reports, with penalties up to permanent bans.

For now, Marissa's response is simple: when a profile shows the hallmarks of AI, she moves on. "The dating pool is already challenging," she said, "and this is just another thing we have to grapple with. How much AI am I OK with?" The thing to watch is whether the apps' enforcement keeps pace as the tools get better.