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It felt like a scene straight from a Nancy Meyers movie. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if revealing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was polite as he detailed how AI tools helped in the wedding preparations. (A human wedding planner was eventually brought in.) I replied courteously. Inside, though, I decided: if my future spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Relationship Non-Negotiable.

Some people have typical relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have flooded my news feed and party conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I will not see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my disdain.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. 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 proofreading tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I say: there are individuals out there for you. But I am not one of them.

How a Minor ‘Ick’ Turns Into a Moral Issue.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being turned off. Part of having an ick is not really understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For example, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that lacked any solid reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for harmless tasks such as figuring out 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 sold as a substitute for real relationships; lonely, disconnected people finding companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a sci-fi plot point as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech bros in control of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

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

How AI Spoils Romance and Connection.

It seems ChatGPT has managed to make the dating scene even more difficult. A good friend lately told me that she spent a night 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 get close to someone who delegates 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 minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself establishing a significant relationship with a person who often uses a tool that diminishes concentration and might bring about societal collapse. Intellectual curiosity, originality, uniqueness – I likely won’t find what I value 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.

Ask yourself if your [dating] preference is truly supporting your future goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she may 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 chumps was too strict. She said no, proceed and judge, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your choice is truly serving 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 beliefs are aligned with yours.”

More Individuals Voicing ChatGPT Concerns.

Other people experience the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She dreams about accessing her phone settings and disabling AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it nearly impossible to disable. 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.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a messy breakup. She supported one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a infamously awful therapy alternative, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to sit through 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 dependent 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 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 probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “rather die” over using AI received significant coverage. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories rant 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 issued statements that are critical of AI in their respective industries. I think these quotes go viral 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 disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, comparable 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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