We Don’t Need Another Tinder: Emotional Intelligence in the Age of AI
In the age of generative AI, one of the most urgent and under-addressed questions is: how do we teach emotional intelligence to something that learns by reflection? How do we ensure that the tools of tomorrow aren’t shaped by the same misaligned mythologies that built Tinder in a think tank of social disconnect?
AI is not inherently wise. It is trained. Sculpted. Fed. And in that process, we have a choice: do we feed it only what has been, or what could be?
We don’t need another origin story where one man’s unexamined biases shape the architecture of an entire generation's emotional experiences. We don’t need another Sean Rad sitting in a room with other socially awkward boys and building an app that gamifies attraction while avoiding vulnerability. We don’t need another Zuckerberg-style ecosystem that optimizes for profit over presence.
What we do need:
AI trained on sources that name the invisible labor and soft power that have gone unspoken for too long
Teams building these systems that include poets, caregivers, educators, and those with lived experience navigating complex human dynamics
Development models that invite emotional literacy, harm prevention, and communal feedback before damage is done
Emotional intelligence is not a feature. It’s the foundation. If AI is to serve humanity, it must be taught by humans who remember their own softness.
I offered this example during a dinner conversation in Los Angeles, while surrounded by other creatives navigating personal and cultural thresholds:
During my time temporarily serving as an Operations Coordinator, I was tasked with organizing our school’s picture day on just five days' notice. The previous coordinator had left little behind, and the person I was told to contact responded with, "They didn't leave you anything? Oh jeez." The process was chaotic, but my startup background had trained me to thrive in disarray.
On the day of the event, my supervisor told me: "It’s all planned, so you can go do other tasks." I gently pushed back, sharing that those who’d witnessed many picture days had said the former coordinator would stay onsite to ensure smooth flow. She allowed me to stay, but didn’t engage further. Of course, when she checked in later during a quiet stretch, she remarked, "Doesn't look like you're needed here."
What I wanted to say, and didn’t, was: "You can't measure the emotional reassurance it brings teachers to know someone is present, watching each photographer station, saying: 'This one is almost wrapped up, you can start forming a line right behind them.” After navigating their 15 to 20 students with 15 to 20 variations of moods, energy and temperaments out of the classroom, that tiny cue is everything.
That is emotional intelligence. And that is exactly what AI, and those who build it, must be trained to see.
If the age of AI is a threshold, then let’s not cross it on autopilot. Let’s cross it as architects of a new myth, one where empathy is a technology, and values are the source code.
We don’t need another Tinder. We need a system that can hold our humanity without trying to outsmart it.