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The scene could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that reeked of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I told the future groom. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was polite as he detailed how AI tools helped in the wedding planning. (A human wedding planner was eventually hired.) I replied politely. Internally, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Dating Red Flags: AI Usage.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have dominated my social media and social conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I will not see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant 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 assist people? How about 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 ‘Ick’ to Ethical Position.

The term “getting the ick” describes that sensation of being suddenly disgusted. Part of having an ick is not really understanding why you found someone’s behavior so off-putting. 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 automatic feeling of disgust that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a conscious moral act. We are aware that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for real relationships; lonely, 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 megarich 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 ease justify the broader harm it can cause?

The Romantic Disaster: If Your Partner Uses ChatGPT.

It appears ChatGPT has found a way to make the romantic scene even more difficult. A good friend lately told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who delegates decisions, including the enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot envision forming a deep, long-term connection with someone who frequently engages with a technology that’s weakening our shared attention spans and perhaps signaling 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 waste their time, you know, watching it.

Consider whether your relationship criterion genuinely fits with your life objectives.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she may use ChatGPT for particular tasks but is not 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 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 evaluate, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is really 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 values are in sync with yours.”

Additional Individuals Expressing AI Concerns.

The dislike for AI extends beyond the dating sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, lives 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 opt out. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a laziness”.

“It’s like you are unable to 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 learning the other went 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 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 simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly 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 don’t need 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.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “prefer death” than use generative AI, it made headlines. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech warning about “environmental racism” and showing fear over users who are “codependent on a machine”. The same goes for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others make statements that are critical of AI in their various industries. I believe these quotes spread widely for a reason: people agree with them.

Even, to an extent, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely deactivate, comparable slop on Instagram. Reports suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals won’t use AI to write their code.

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