By Rabbi Gil Student

Matchmaking is an act of kindness on multiple levels, creating families and relieving individuals and their families of the stress of finding a match. Traditionally, families pay a successful shadchan, matchmaker, a fee known as shadchanus. What happens when an artificial intelligence app makes the suggestion? Imagine that an AI matchmaking service evaluates thousands of profiles, identifies a compatible couple and recommends that they meet. The couple dates and eventually marries. Is the owner of the app entitled to shadchanus, even though he never considered this particular couple and may not even know who they are? Or is no payment required beyond any minimal app fees because no human being actually performed the matchmaking?

I. Paying the Matchmaker

Rav Moshe Isserles (Rema; 16th cen., Poland) rules that a matchmaker has the legal status of a broker, deserving of payment (Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 185:10). His ruling draws on earlier authorities, particularly Rav Yisrael Isserlein (15th cen., Austria), who discusses when a matchmaking fee becomes payable, when the parties agreed to the match or after the wedding (Terumas HaDeshen, Pesakim U-Kesavim, no. 85). The prevalence of this practice to pay a shadchan is reflected in the frequency of disputes over the details throughout the generations.

The obligation to pay shadchanus generally exists even without an explicit agreement. Rema (Choshen Mishpat 264:4) rules that if someone provides you with a beneficial service, he can demand compensation even if you never requested the service. You cannot simply claim that the work was performed voluntarily. Therefore, a person who independently proposes a successful match is generally entitled to payment, even without a prior agreement. Additionally, Rema, following Maharam of Rothenburg, rules that even when someone promises a matchmaker an exceptionally large sum, he generally need pay only the appropriate fee (Choshen Mishpat 264:7). The customary fee generally determines how much the matchmaker receives.

Rav Yosef Almosnino (17th cen., Serbia) argues that a shadchan is paid for a successful match, regardless of how much or how little he worked. A matchmaker might spend days working without achieving anything, while another might succeed with a few words. Even a matchmaker who performs almost no work can receive the full customary fee when his suggestion produces a successful result (Responsa Edus Bi-Yehosef, vol. 2, no. 35). Based on what we have seen so far, it would seem that a couple is required to pay shadchanus to the owner of an AI matchmaking app. The owner developed the service and makes it available to users. If the software produces a successful match, the absence of personal effort on that particular suggestion would not necessarily eliminate the right to payment. After all, even a human matchmaker can earn his entire fee for a suggestion that takes only a moment, if that is all it takes to make a match. What if other people need to serve as intermediaries for the dating process?

II. Who Made the Match?

Rav Avraham Eisenstadt (19th cen., Russia) quotes an interesting responsum from Rav Yair Chaim Bacharach (17th cen., Germany). A matchmaker wrote to Reuven suggesting a match for Reuven’s widowed sister-in-law. Reuven communicated with the widow and completed the arrangement. He then claimed that he, too, deserved shadchanus, since the original matchmaker had never approached the widow directly. Rav Bacharach agrees that Reuven has a valid claim and is entitled to a portion of the shadchanus. More than one matchmaker can be involved in a match and, depending on the situation, each may be entitled to compensation (Pischei Teshuvah, Even Ha-Ezer 50:16, quoting Chut HaShani, no. 3).

Identifying the person entitled to shadchanus can require examining who actually communicated the suggestion and in what capacity. Rav Eisenstadt cites three opinions on how to divide the shadchanus money if multiple people are involved in the matchmaking. Some say only the final matchmaker, the one who brings the match to fruition, receives the payment. Others believe they split the money evenly. The common practice, though, is to give the initiator one-third of the shadchanus (Pischei Teshuvah, Choshen Mishpat 185:3; Rav Simcha Yonah Klein, Piskei Ha-Mishpat 185:3).

Rav Betzalel Stern (20th cen., Israel) discusses the definition of an initiator. He concludes that someone who suggests a match that would not have otherwise been considered is the initiator even if he did no work beyond that (Be-Tzel Ha-Chokhmah, vol. 3, no. 10). This suggests a distinction between two kinds of matchmaking apps. A website that merely provides a searchable directory allows users to discover one another. Its owner supplies information but does not necessarily perform matchmaking. An AI service that evaluates compatibility and actively proposes specific matches performs something much closer to the work of a traditional shadchan.

III. Does the Owner Get Paid?

It would seem that shadchanus is owed to the app when its matchmaking service successfully introduces two people. Since the traditional fee reflects the benefit provided and can be earned with minimal effort, and even the suggestion alone constitutes matchmaking, there is reason to treat the service as compensable. The computer merely changes how the work is accomplished. And if human matchmakers subsequently help the couple through the dating process, the app should still receive one-third of the shadchanus.

But the app is not an entity, even if it runs on AI. It is a tool, a creation of programmers working for a company or an individual. Much like the money earned by a coin-operated laundromat belongs to the laundromat’s owner, or a vending machine’s earnings belong to its owner, I suggest that an app’s earnings belong to its owner. If this is true, the owner of a matchmaking app, whether a company or an individual, deserves shadchanus.

However, the app’s fee structure is important. Rav Bacharach (loc. cit.) rules that someone who explicitly offers to arrange a match for free cannot subsequently demand payment. If the app advertises its services as free, then the app owner should not be paid shadchanus. And if the app charges a fee for its use and does not explicitly add shadchanus if the match is successful, then the app owner has implicitly agreed to forgo shadchanus. By omitting shadchanus from its stated fees, the app owner has implicitly waived that payment. Shadchanus compensates a matchmaker for providing a valuable service, even when the effort involved is minimal. An AI app that actively proposes a successful match appears to provide such a service. Therefore, I suggest that the app’s owner should be paid for the service, assuming he has not waived payment or established a different fee structure. This is a tentative application of traditional halachic principles to a new technology, and practical questions should be brought to a competent halachic authority.