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It was a moment straight from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if sharing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

I grinned tightly as this man explained using artificial intelligence for the early stages of planning the wedding. (They also hired a professional wedding planner.) I replied courteously. Internally, though, I resolved: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Dating Dealbreakers: Artificial Intelligence Use.

Many individuals have usual relationship non-negotiables. Won’t smoke, prefers cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have flooded my social media and social conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I refuse to see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my scorn.)

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 help people? How about I only use it as a editing 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 ‘Ick’ to Political Position.

The term “getting the ick” describes that sensation of being suddenly turned off. A key aspect 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. Initially, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a mere ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that had no any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for benign tasks such as planning a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an more and more political choice. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases 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 science fiction plot point as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech executives in control 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 justify the broader harm it can cause?

How ChatGPT Spoils Romance and Intimacy.

It seems ChatGPT has managed to make the romantic scene even more difficult. A close acquaintance lately told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot imagine forming a profound, lasting connection with someone who frequently engages with a technology that’s weakening our collective attention spans and perhaps signaling total apocalypse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, uniqueness – I probably won’t find what I value in someone who thinks “productivity” means asking an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

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

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she does use ChatGPT for particular tasks but doesn’t promote it. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has approached 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 asked Jackson if my rule against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, go forth and evaluate, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your choice is really supporting your long-term 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.”

Additional Individuals Voicing AI Concerns.

The dislike for AI applies beyond the romantic realm. 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 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 lately had a complicated breakup. She supported one of them after learning the other turned to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful therapy alternative, not their partner, when they needed to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to sit through any uncomfortable human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I found not handle it on my own. I had grown too dependent on AI for even basic tasks.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly skeptical. “I am not sure if I would think differently 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 probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Well-Known Figures and Tech Insiders Speaking Out.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “choose death” over using AI received significant coverage. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech warning about “environmental racism” and showing 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 critical 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 introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely remove, similar content on Instagram. Reports indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies won’t use AI to write their code.

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