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It was a scene straight from a Nancy Meyers film. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I told the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled tightly as this person explained using generative AI for the initial stages of planning the wedding. (They also hired a human wedding planner.) I responded courteously. Inside, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding input from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Dating Red Flags: AI Use.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my news feed and social conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my disdain.)

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

From Disgust to Political Position.

The phrase “getting the ick” refers to that sensation of being unexpectedly disgusted. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For instance, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of disgust that had no any solid reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the tool even for harmless tasks such as planning a fitness routine or choosing what to wear feels an more and more ethical choice. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; isolated, disconnected people finding companionship or even falling in love 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.

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

How ChatGPT Ruins Dating and Intimacy.

It appears ChatGPT has managed 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 took out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the fun ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to picture myself establishing a meaningful relationship with a person who consistently uses a tool that diminishes focus and might lead to societal collapse. Intellectual curiosity, creativity, originality – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means prompting an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Consider whether your dating criterion actually fits 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 approached her complaining about “chatfishing” or people who use AI to generate everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I asked Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT users was too strict. She said no, go forth and judge, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is truly supporting your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your principles, and it’s important to find someone whose beliefs are in sync with yours.”

More Individuals Expressing ChatGPT Concerns.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the romantic realm. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and does sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about going into her phone settings and disabling AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it almost impossible to opt out. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a lack of initiative”.

“It’s like you are unable to think for yourself, and you have to rely on an app for that,” she said.

A recent acquaintance’s split was particularly messy. She supported one of them after learning 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 refused to endure any uncomfortable human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and move on, which is not how things work.”

Suddenly I couldn’t do it by myself. I was too reliant on AI to do the simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, has comparable sentiments. “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.”

Well-Known Personalities and Silicon Valley Insiders Speaking Out.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “prefer death” than use generative AI, it made headlines. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech cautioning 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 make statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a cause: people agree with them.

This attitude is present even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely deactivate, similar slop on Instagram. Sources 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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