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The scene could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I told the future groom. He leaned in as if revealing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My smile was courteous as he outlined how AI tools helped in the wedding planning. (A real wedding planner was also brought in.) I responded courteously. Inside, though, I resolved: if my future spouse approached to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Romantic Dealbreakers: Artificial Intelligence Use.

Some people have typical relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my news feed and social conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my disdain.)

People often ask the “what if” scenarios. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? What if I use it to help people? What if I only use it as a editing tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I respond: there are individuals out there for you. But I am not one of them.

From Disgust to Political Stance.

The term “getting the ick” refers to that sensation of being unexpectedly disgusted. Part of having an ick is not really understanding why you found someone’s behavior so unseemly. For instance, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of disgust that lacked any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for harmless tasks such as planning a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an increasingly ethical choice. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for human connection; isolated, disconnected people discovering companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a sci-fi scenario as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech bros in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can generate your shopping list. But does that personal benefit offset the wider damage it causes?

How AI Spoils Dating and Connection.

It seems ChatGPT has found a way to make the dating scene even more challenging. 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 requested for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to see myself building a significant bond with a person who often uses a tool that erodes focus and might bring about societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, originality – I likely won’t find what I value in someone who believes “productivity” means asking an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] choice is truly serving your long-term goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she does use ChatGPT for specific tasks but doesn’t promote 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 chumps was too harsh. She said no, go forth and judge, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is really supporting your long-term goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your principles, and it’s essential to find someone whose values are in sync with yours.”

More Individuals Expressing AI Apprehensions.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the romantic sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and works in sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about accessing her phone settings and disabling AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it almost impossible to disable. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “demonstrates 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 went to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful therapy substitute, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and move on, 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 works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise skeptical. “I am not sure if I would think otherwise about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You shouldn’t have to rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Resistance.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “rather die” over using AI received significant attention. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech warning about “environmental racism” and expressing fear over users who are “codependent on a machine”. Ditto still for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others issued statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I think these quotes spread widely for a reason: people sympathize with them.

Even, to an extent, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely remove, similar slop on Instagram. Sources suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies refuse to use AI to write their code.

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