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It felt like a moment lifted from a Nancy Meyers movie. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I told the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if revealing a secret: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

My smile was courteous as he outlined how generative AI assisted in the wedding preparations. (A human wedding planner was eventually brought in.) I responded courteously. Internally, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The New Dating Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have standard romantic dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have flooded my news feed and party conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program really, 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. What if I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? Imagine if I use it to assist 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.

When a Simple ‘Ick’ Becomes a Moral Stand.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so off-putting. 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 clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for apparently simple tasks like creating a workout plan or picking an outfit feels like a deliberate political decision. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for real relationships; lonely, disconnected people finding 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 charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that personal advantage excuse the wider negative impact it creates?

How AI Ruins Romance and Connection.

It appears ChatGPT has managed to make the romantic scene even more difficult. 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, opened ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who outsources decisions, including the fun ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot imagine forming a deep, long-term connection with someone who frequently engages with a technology that’s weakening our collective attention spans and possibly heralding total apocalypse. Inquisitiveness, originality, originality – I probably won’t find what I value in someone who believes “productivity” means asking an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

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

Ali Jackson, a romantic coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for some tasks – but she is not an advocate. In the past six months or so, she states “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 asked Jackson if my strike 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 utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is really supporting your long-term 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 in sync with yours.”

Others Who Share the AI Aversion.

The dislike for AI applies beyond the romantic sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She dreams about going into her phone settings and deactivating AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it almost impossible to opt out. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a laziness”.

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

A recent acquaintance’s breakup was especially ugly. She sided with one of them after discovering the other went to ChatGPT, a infamously poor 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 process 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 most basic things [at work].

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

Well-Known Figures and Tech Insiders Voicing Concerns.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “rather die” over using AI garnered 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 make statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a reason: people sympathize with them.

This attitude is present even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, similar slop on Instagram. Sources indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals refuse to use AI to write their code.

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