AI evaluates Tinder profile pictures to rate the hottest

An AI application is helping users rate their profile images to tell them which one has the best chance to perform well on dating apps.

AI is gaining importance in the online dating app scene. Bumble recently introduced AI safety tools to flag scams and fake profiles. SciMatch is offering an AI service that matches potential partners based on their facial features. Applications offering AI-generated pick-up lines are also on the rise, while Bumble has its own in-built service for suggesting icebreaking lines.

While knowing what to say is important, the first thing that determines the left or right swipe on dating apps is a profile image. The internet is full of self-help blog posts advising love-thirsty souls on how to craft the perfect profile image to get the best matching results.

Maybe AI can help here, too? I tried an application called Firstpic.ai that claims to provide AI insights on how my photo is going to perform on dating apps. The app’s creators claim the tool was trained on tens of thousands of photos and can identify “the qualities of dating pictures that yield high-quality matches and volume.”

What makes your dating image stand out?

Once you upload a photo to the application, it provides a score. It also gives you a score of where the photo stands compared to other women's or men’s photos. You get 12 photo rankings for free, and then you need to subscribe.

As you’re uploading personal photos into the application, this raises privacy concerns. In the privacy policy, it’s not mentioned whether they’re storing the images, apart from the claim that Firstpic doesn’t process any sensitive data. However, your pictures are most likely used to train the model further, and your scores are stored to compare them to others.

The application's creators don’t disclose what criteria the AI uses to make decisions for ratings. In general, the AI algorithms' sense of ‘beauty’ has been criticized for fluctuating biases and toxic beauty standards.

To find if these patterns are the case for ranking dating app photos, I tried uploading images of women having different body shapes, ages, and different clothing – more revealing and less revealing. Luckily, toxic beauty traits did not seem to influence the ratings.

What reduced the scores significantly was the lack of a smile and not a fully visible face. Group photos received the worst score.

In the tips section of the application, the creators explain what’s important in the profile photo for dating apps:

• The images have good lighting and sharp focus
• You smile and look into the camera
• Full body shot
• Vibrant backgrounds instead of dull walls
• Show off your personality with hobbies
• No group shots
• No selfies

The AI model likely runs this checklist on the photo you upload, as I noticed myself when experimenting with uploaded photos. You can’t expect a highly sophisticated psychological analysis.

So, what are my final thoughts? To be honest, common sense would be as informative as this AI application. But you can still try it out, just for fun.