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The setting could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers film. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is perfect,” I told the future groom. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was polite as he outlined how generative AI assisted in the wedding planning. (A real wedding planner was also brought in.) I responded courteously. Internally, however, I decided: if my future spouse came to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Romantic Dealbreakers: Artificial Intelligence Usage.

Some people have typical relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have flooded my social media and party conversations, I’ve come up with a new one. I refuse to see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the object of my scorn.)

I’ve encountered all the “what if’s”. Suppose I use it for my job, but I hate it otherwise? What if I use it to assist people? How about I only use it as a editing tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I say: there are people out there for you. But I am not one of them.

From ‘Ick’ to Political Position.

The term “getting the ick” refers to that feeling of being unexpectedly disgusted. A key aspect of having an ick is not fully understanding why you found someone’s behavior so off-putting. For example, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a simple ick, a automatic feeling of revulsion that lacked any clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a conscious moral decision. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a placebo for human connection; lonely, disconnected people discovering companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a sci-fi plot point as it is just the way things go now. The megarich tech executives in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT assists you write your grocery list. Does your personal ease outweigh the societal harm it can cause?

How ChatGPT Ruins Dating and Intimacy.

As if it had not done enough already, ChatGPT has somehow made dating even worse. A good friend lately told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself building a meaningful bond with a person who often uses a tool that erodes focus and might lead to societal collapse. Intellectual curiosity, originality, uniqueness – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means prompting an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to waste their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your dating criterion actually aligns with your life aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she does use ChatGPT for specific purposes but is not endorse it. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has come her expressing concern about “chatfishing” or people who use AI to create everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I inquired Jackson if my rule against ChatGPT users was too harsh. She said no, proceed and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is really supporting your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would presume that’s one of your values, and it’s essential to find someone whose values are aligned with yours.”

More Individuals Voicing ChatGPT Concerns.

The aversion for AI extends beyond the romantic sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about accessing her phone settings and deactivating AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it nearly impossible to opt out. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “shows such a lack of initiative”.

“It’s like you can’t think for yourself, and you have to rely on an app for that,” she said.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a complicated breakup. She supported one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a infamously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they didn’t want to sit through any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Suddenly I was unable to do it by myself. I was too reliant on AI to do the simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise weary. “I don’t know if I would think differently about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You don’t need to rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “prefer death” than use generative AI, it made headlines. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech cautioning about “environmental racism” and showing fear over users who are “codependent on a machine”. The same goes for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others issued statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes spread widely for a reason: people sympathize with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, similar slop on Instagram. Reports indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals won’t use AI to write their code.

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