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- Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 05/19/2026 at 09:21AM eastern, and we have a baffling show for you this week. In this episode, Georgia chats with Sydney Bradley, senior media and tech reporter at Business Insider about dating app Bumble's termination of the swipe in favor, it seems, of AI powered matchmaking for what the company's CEO has labeled exhausted singles, degraded by dating apps current design. Will AI be less degrading? Georgia and Sydney discuss. But first, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna listen to some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we return, we'll talk about a few of the things that have happened since the last time you heard from us. I'm talking pedicure on our toes, toes, trying on all our clothes, clothes, boys blowing up our phones, phones, drop topping, playing our favorite CDs, pulling up to the parties, trying to get six stories this week. Google unveiled a new search product at their yearly IO conference this week. The new experience will be powered by, say it with me now, artificial intelligence. Instead of search terms and a familiar battalion of blue links, searchers will occasionally be led to an interactive chat experience with a more conversational approach. The tech giant is also introducing information agents alongside this product launch. These agents, writes TechCrunch, can work in the background twenty four seven to track changes on the web and alert you to new information. For instance, you could have an agent track market movements based on customer parameters, Google suggests, end quote. This comes in the midst of a multi year saga during which many have reported overall degraded quality of Google's search. They have been accused of allowing slop and SEO tricksters to hijack results, pushing useful information into the remote recesses of the engine. Will fighting AI with AI pan out? Time will tell. Mozilla says it's squashed over 400 Firefox bugs by making use of Claude's new model Mythos, which is if the rumors are to be believed too powerful to be released publicly. Mozilla engineers Brian Grinstead, Christian Holler, and Fredrik Braun wrote at hacks.mozilla.com on May 7 that in the past, the results from using AI to hunt security vulnerabilities and software left much to be desired, but that it was now, quote, difficult to overstate how much this dynamic changed over a few short months, end quote. Over 2025, the team averaged 21.5 security bug fixes per month. In April of this year, they addressed 423. Anyone building software, they write, can start using a harness with a modern model to find bugs and harden their code today. We recommend getting started now. You will find bugs. You will set yourself up to take advantage of new models as soon as they become available, end quote. At the time of writing, Claude Mythos is only in the hands of high level security researchers at industry leaders like Amazon, Apple, Google, Linux, etcetera. Forbes reports that in the first few weeks of testing, Mythos apparently found thousands of vulnerabilities across the web and technology sector. Some as old as nearly thirty years. All of this comes nearly a year after DARPA, the very same that invested in the creation of the Internet and self driving cars, announced the winners of their artificial intelligence cyber challenge, which Eric Geller at Cybersecurity Drive describes as quote, a multi year effort to spur the of AI systems that can quickly find and fix bugs in America's sprawling web of critical infrastructure, end quote. The technology developed by the three finalists did not squash as many bugs as Mythos, but it is also not as widely deployed focused instead on particular pieces of critical infrastructure. It is all however open source. Geller writes cash strapped critical infrastructure firms might pass over OpenAI and Anthropix tools in favor of the DARPA finalists much cheaper, but similarly effective services. I wonder if Mozilla, a bastion of open source technology, gave those alternative technologies a shot. And if not, why? The DHS, America's Department of Homeland Security, has apparently put some millions of dollars aside to develop their own gadgets. Their 2027 science and technology directorate budget details the need for, quote, smart glasses to equip agents with real time access to information and biometric identification capabilities in the field, end quote. This comes after numerous agents deployed in US cities appear to wear Meta's Ray Ban smart glasses out in the field and the department's increasing emphasis on surveillance and facial recognition. The latter most notably via an app called Mobile Fortify. The results from which the agency says they prioritize over the existence of documents like birth certificates. X will limit accounts to 50 posts and 200 replies per day if they do not subscribe to the verification service and therefore possess a blue check mark. Okay. Sounds good. Kickstarter revised its mature content guidelines at the beginning of the month to include bans on a broader selection of media apparently under pressure from payment processor Stripe. They walked back those new guidelines on May 19. COO Sean Liu, though genuinely, I suspect more likely Chet GPT, wrote in a statement, last week, we released a set of updates to our rules around mature content. It was our first time publishing a set of detailed specific guidelines for adult oriented content on Kickstarter, and honestly, we botched it. The rules didn't land the way we intended, and the response from our community let us know loud and clear that we got it wrong. You deserve better. So we're going back to the drawing board, and, yes, that means we're going back to our previous rules. I mean, come on. That's a chatbot. Right? Anyway, to their credit, Kickstarter does acknowledge their mistake and goes on to explain that they're between a rock and a hard place. Adult themed projects were reaching their funding goals, being approved by Kickstarter, and then suspended by Stripe. From this point forward, Kickstarter will more prominently share Stripe's guidelines so creators are aware, and they have authored a guide detailing the most common causes for reviews and suspensions at any point throughout the funding process. We're gonna link to all of this in the show notes. And finally, Bumble has retired the swipe. Started by a Tinder co founder, Bumble had to fight for its right to swipe. The rival dating app was sued by its predecessor for among other things copying its core design, which Bumble argued is simple, intuitive, and uncopyrightable. The two companies settled out of court almost two years later with undisclosed terms, but Bumble was clearly able to keep swiping. But no more. The swipe has degraded their love lives. Bumble founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Heard said of the dating public. Dating apps are famously struggling at the moment with Bumble's q one revenue down 14% and paying customers down 21%. So what replaces the swipe? Time will tell, but the company has touted, chapter based user profiles and a dating assistant called Bee that is powered by, say it with me now, artificial intelligence. Right now, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we return, Georgia will discuss with Sydney Bradley, senior media and tech reporter at Business Insider, how the dating app's pivot to AI could play out. Georgia Hampton: You know, one of these days, I would love to bring you a piece of good news about the world of dating apps. But unfortunately, today is not one of those days. Last week, on May 14, the dating app Bumble announced that it is removing its swipe feature. Swiping is the standard for pretty much every single dating app on the market. So what, pray tell, is the app doing instead? They are replacing the swipe with an AI assistant, or better said, an AI matchmaker named Bee that will connect you with people that it has deemed the best fit for you based on your profile. This is coming as part of a massive redesign of the entire app in order to try and attract more young people after steady declines in paid users. But who in the world would want this? Whether it will even work? How people who already use Bumble feel about this? All of that remains unclear. And I wanted to talk about this as soon as possible because frankly, it makes me feel like I have gone temporarily insane. So in order to do so, I have brought in Sydney Bradley, a media and tech reporter for Business Insider who often writes specifically about dating apps. What the fuck is going on? Sydney Bradley: I I would say this isn't a surprise. Surprise. Every single dating app now has some sort of AI pitch. It's in part just to get investors back on board and say, hey, we're following the trends too. But every single new dating app that I've seen pretty much has been some form of AI dating. There was the wave of AI bots where your bots would talk to each other or you could date an AI if you really wanted to. You can still do that if you wish. Georgia Hampton: Yes. There listen. We're not here to yuck any yums. Yeah. We're not, kink shaming you are. Sydney Bradley: Yeah. There's so many AI matchmaking apps. It's been a boom in the dating app category. And the general premise is that these apps use LLMs to build an assistant that will make it easier for you to date by bringing you people. So that's how it's sort of erasing the swipe is by instead just serving you people on a platter via a robot. Georgia Hampton: Okay. So in theory, it is making dating easier. But in practice, is that actually what is happening? Like No. Sydney Bradley: Okay. I've tried them. I've I've literally tried dating on these AI matchmaking apps. I wrote a whole story about this and one of my takeaways was, I'm not sure if I'm the problem or it's the app. We gotta that's a whole another category to dive into. But I don't really think that AI matchmaking is a true replacement of the swipe. It's sort of a slowed down version of a swipe where, yes, instead of swiping through hundreds of profiles, you are instead delivered something that feels more curated for you, maybe feels more intentional, and intentional dating is thrown around as one of the hottest buzzwords in dating too. Mhmm. But did it change anything revolutionary for me of did I meet love my life? No. Did I face all of the same problems I face on a dating app of not being able to follow-up or getting busy or not really feeling a spark? Yes. It I can't say yet that it is a a 100% fix for dating apps. Georgia Hampton: Are you seeing any positive response from users about this at all? Sydney Bradley: I think it's refreshing to have anything new. Like, the dating apps that we've had has have pretty much been the same for about a decade. Having something new and sort of just, like, meeting the demand of what people want and are frustrated with, I think, gets people a little bit excited and maybe feels promising. I think a lot of these apps that are more so on the startup side have had to build from more so nothing. It'll be really interesting to see how Bumble and Hinge as well has also been talking about bringing in AI into more of its app of how bigger apps can sort of bring AI to the masses. I don't know yet if the average consumer has felt anything substantial or life changing. I haven't met anyone myself who's had, like, a life changing AI relationship, a relationship from an AI app. But, yeah, I think that we still need a lot more time to have these AI matchmaking tools grow and live up to their promise. Georgia Hampton: So then it sounds like apart from very, very new apps, Bumble is kind of the first of the big boys to, like, really commit to it. Is that true? Sydney Bradley: Yeah. Hinge hasn't rolled out a matchmaking tool, and Hinge's original, like, CEO had stepped away from the platform a couple months ago to build his own AI matchmaking. Still vague of what he's actually building. His own AI dating app. Tinder has also introduced a couple AI dating features. Facebook as well. Facebook Dating has Oh. A pretty much a matchmaking tool that will in the DMs, like, DM with a dating AI assistant, and the assistant brings you a match saying, this person would be a great match for you. Bumble, I think, is maybe trying to be the loudest of, like, owning this niche, but they're definitely they're not the first in terms of dating app to say they wanna do AI. But I think if they get this product out, it might be the first biggest, like, dating matchmaker to the masses. Georgia Hampton: So how does this process work? Like, even obviously, Bumble is about to launch this. But on something like Facebook dating, like, can you walk me through what this matchmaking experience is like? Every Sydney Bradley: single thing that I've tested, basically, you talk to an LLM. And maybe that's over a voice product where you literally speak out loud on the phone basically to a chatbot who then responds and takes in your profile verbally, which does feel a little bit better than, like, writing out all these prompts and putting pouring your whole life story into a few boxes. And then Mhmm. You might also DM and actually be on your phone texting this LLM saying, here's what my relationship priorities are. Here are the red flags that I look out for. Here are things about me that I think are important, my values, whatever. And then the AI typically takes that and makes a certain profile for you. And then and this part is more where it's the black box of I don't know how the AI really decides if you're a good match. Can anyone really know if anyone's a really good match? And then it'll bring you someone saying, hey, I found a match for you. You should talk to them. You then accept. And so I've had this on there's apps called Sytch. Amada is another one. And so all these apps, like, you get like a notification from the app saying, we found you a match. Here's the person and then it's up to you to actually do the talking. Georgia Hampton: Did you think it did a good job? Sydney Bradley: In everything I've tested, I didn't feel like I that AI knew what I wanted any better than myself. The weirdest part too is it asks you, typically, the ones I've experienced of why? Why are you saying no? And I was like, oh, I don't I don't know I wanna Georgia Hampton: answer Oh, god. I mean, I imagine that has to just be like more data collection. Sydney Bradley: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Georgia Hampton: But that does come with such a weird, like, are you mad Sydney Bradley: at me? Yeah. I'm you like them? Like, may okay. Maybe I maybe I should unpack this why I don't wanna go on a date with this person. One of the biggest complaints about dating apps and swiping is that it has turned these profiles into less of a real human to online daters. But I I'm not convinced yet that AI helps that. It just makes it it just is like kind of like changes the volume problem of you have fewer slower matches. Georgia Hampton: Yeah. This is something I personally have kind of struggled with about this news. I had a very weird, intense, visceral reaction in the negative about the removal of the swipe. And I I would like to talk about swiping as a as a component of this specifically, because you're totally right. Like, there's a degree in which you just get this gigantic stack of people, and you're paging through them, and it doesn't feel like anybody's real or that you're real or that any of this is real. But swiping at the same time feels kind of like the one moment of agency you have before you start talking to people because you're choosing. You're not being given something. And I think agency agency feels like a big part of this. And I'm curious what happens when you take that agency away? Sydney Bradley: I think what these products are gonna have to really push forward is that sort of rebranding agency of the agency now might be in your decision to say yes to the person that you're given by the AI matchmaker, or no. Like, there is still agency there, but it's not like you are combing through and picking people out anymore. And so that is the shift where it's less of like if you're at a bar and you see people in the room and you're like, I'm gonna go up to that person and be like, hey, you're really cute. That that's better agency than any of the above. But it's and at the same time though, it's like the dating apps are also algorithmic. So it's like, the AI has already been there. It's been machine learning for so many years. But so, like, yes, it's complicated question of have we ever really had agency on these apps, especially in the way that they're gamified. And I mean, I I have that of, like, sometimes I'll just be swiping. I'm like, what what am I doing? I just Georgia Hampton: put the phone down. Yes. God. Yes. Yeah. What time is it? Sydney Bradley: Go outside. Georgia Hampton: Well, so this makes me think of in your experience with these preexisting matchmaking features, is this something that's available to all users, or is this going to be something behind a paywall? Sydney Bradley: So the only free, like, matchmaking thing I've really tried is Facebook. And Facebook's whole thing is that the all the dating app features that are usually behind paywalls are free for Facebook. So you can, like, sort through different categories of height, like interests, things like that. That is paywalled, I think, on Hinge. So the other dating apps I've used that have AI matchmakers typically have either had me pay upfront where I had to pay for three matches. This is for Stitch. I think I had to pay upfront for three matches, and then I never even used all three. I think I only went on, like, a couple. But then on Amada, you have to pay per date. That was, like, you yeah. So it's free to talk to the actual bot and get the matches, but once you confirm, then you pay for the date. Georgia Hampton: Wait. Okay. Hold on. Sydney Bradley: Let me Georgia Hampton: get this straight. So you can talk to this matchmaker as much as you want, and they'll bring you possible people. But the second that you say, yes, that sounds great. I'm going to talk to this person. They're like, money, please. Sydney Bradley: Yes. And then this this app specifically also at the time that I was using it, I don't know if they've changed how it works since then. This was around December. You couldn't actually message the person that you matched with and had a date with until, like, two hours before your date. Georgia Hampton: What? Wait. What? Yeah. Wait. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Wait. So it schedules a date for you? Sydney Bradley: Oh, it schedules a a plan. It picks the spot. It picks, like, you you open up like a it's like your Google Calendar. You select like a bunch of time frames and days that work for you. And then it picks a place and it sends you the date plan. Georgia Hampton: Oh my god. So you're not even talking to this person at all? Sydney Bradley: You yeah. You can, like, ask the bot questions about the person. Like, do they like like, what type of music do they like? What? Georgia Hampton: Oh my god. Sydney Bradley: That's so And if I remember correctly, I asked that about someone once and the the bot was like, I don't know. They didn't mention what type of music they like. And I was like, no. Georgia Hampton: And okay. I mean, to be clear, since we're speaking specifically about Bumble in regards to this trend, I at least have not seen anything particular about the way that this matchmaker is gonna work, like, whether there will be a paywall. I have to imagine there will be, especially because this is in response to losing paid users. But, I mean, is it safe to kind of predict that some of these features, this kind of ever present matchmaker will Yeah. Be adopted? Sydney Bradley: Definitely in seeing also how almost every single AI product, especially consumer facing products, have this sort of if at the very least a freemium model where it's free to use a little bit, but then you need to pay to start using it more. Like, even ChatGPT, you hit, like, a certain minimum of images you can upload or things that you can send before it tries to get you to pay. And with dating apps, it's they've really, like, cracked the code of getting I mean, people people will pay for love. That's never been Georgia Hampton: that's that's Sydney Bradley: a fact of life now. So Georgia Hampton: You're right. You're right. I mean, these apps have been gamified and paywallified within an inch of their lives. And I can see this being sort of the next logical step, especially because there's so much financial incentive Sydney Bradley: Mhmm. Georgia Hampton: By shareholders, by I mean, Bumble's a publicly traded company, like, you Sydney Bradley: know Yeah. Georgia Hampton: To to do this. But I to me, that seems like such a short term solution of being, like, we're gonna get a bunch of money. We're gonna be part of this big AI moment that everyone's having. But I also then, you know, am seeing this pretty broad negative reaction to super in your face AI. I mean, we're talking right after multiple commencement speeches got booed because the speaker mentioned that AI was, like, the next industrial revolution or whatever. How how do you think this will play out in the long term? Sydney Bradley: I think at the same time that, like, all these apps are really doubling down on AI, part of me being a reporter who covers this space has to keep a lot of optimism and a big question mark of this might work out. Maybe I was too young to use the dating apps when they launched in, like, twenty twenty tens, 2012. I used it through college mostly. And then now, I'm also in that generation that's burnt out on the dating apps. Mhmm. Could it be good? Maybe. That's like a huge maybe. I have tried these and nothing has worked for me. Again, that might be a me problem. I Georgia Hampton: I don't know. Sydney Bradley: But but at the same time, I also with these all these dating apps, there's such a big movement to have IRL dating. Mhmm. And we're seeing that in, like, there's events everywhere now where there's presentation parties or people present their friends Oh, themselves to date. Yes. Or speed dating had a moment. Even Bachelor Bumble has some sort of IRL program that they're trying to do. I keep seeing ads on my TikTok or something for it. But there's also apps that try to get people to meet in person in a group setting, and then you can maybe start dating someone from that. And that could also use AI to get you to meet people who you wouldn't have typically met. Sure. But without, like, the self sorting of it. So I think what gives me optimism is in a lot of this AI moment of all of the IRL and analog momentum of revive reviving the things that we used to have in contrast with the hyper futuristic AI of somewhere in between, maybe something will work. But I don't build dating apps. Georgia Hampton: I just use them. No. I I'm inclined to agree with you because I if it isn't clear, I I think I may be struggling a bit with the optimism that you have about this because this just feels so evil to me. But I I am inclined to agree with you that if nothing else, this could kind of catapult, to use the buzz term, intentional dating Yeah. In the real world. To go to presentation parties, matchmaking events, even I don't know. It's it's this is a a trickier, I think, plane to land nowadays, but the classic go to a bar and scope out the scene. Sydney Bradley: There's been a couple apps that I've seen. I've tried them, but the problem is that there's not enough users. Is that if you're out and about, you could sort of bat signal to other singles in your area that you are nearby and can be done. Like, that that could be cool. But I've tried it all I've tried it all at this point. I mean, that's got it. Georgia Hampton: That's almost like, like, the Grindr, like, location feature where it's, like, like, three feet away. Sydney Bradley: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, Georgia Hampton: then it sounds like I mean, as we've discussed, AI has always been present in dating apps from the beginning, more or less. Sydney Bradley: Mhmm. Georgia Hampton: It has been learning us. And it sounds like as a tool, like an aggregate of information, there's some usefulness there. But it sounds like if it overstays its welcome is where we start to get into some trouble. Sydney Bradley: Yeah. And I think the big question I have is, it can know so many things about you. I just don't know how much it can know about how you actually work as a couple. Those things, I don't know you if you can ever have that on paper or Yeah. Written down. And I'm I'm trying to figure that out in the long scheme of things too. So I I don't know if AI will help me find that, but perhaps it'll help people find someone who's on paper more compatible for them. Georgia Hampton: Well, Sydney, I'm not sure if I feel more optimistic or less than in the beginning of our conversation, but I really appreciate you coming on and talking to me about this and giving me a lot of context that I certainly did not have before. Where can people find more of your work? Sydney Bradley: Yeah. I'm on businessinsider.com as well. I post a lot of my work on LinkedIn. Started posting some of my work again on Twitter. You can find me on Instagram as well. My general handle is Sydney k Bradley for anything Business Insider related. So follow me everywhere. You can also follow me on the Business Insider website. Amazing. Georgia Hampton: Well, thank you so much. Sydney Bradley: Thanks for having me. I love talking about this topic. Georgia Hampton: So Something something tells me you'll be back. Mike Rugnetta: That is the news we have for you this week. We're gonna be back here in the main feed on or around Thursday, May 28. The promotions will continue until morale improves. We continue to run an amazing package subscription deal with our pals at rogue.site, aftermath, and rascal. Get a month of member access to each for half price, and then after the month is over, continue subscribing to the outlets you love, which I am sure will be all of them. Find a link in the show notes and get access to Never Post's member feed for 2 whole dollars. Never Post's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious. Doctor first name, last name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer. The show's host, that's me, is Mike Krichnita. Lying in the corners of the room, the books get slung like leaves. Too many iron browed teachers of the law. Your cosmology and the mind are by far the most interesting subjects and the most fun to explore and that I would much rather try to be shapeless. Excerpt of Quintessential Day by Chris Torrance. Never Post is a production of charts and leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.