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It felt like a moment lifted from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked 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 sharing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My smile was courteous as he outlined how AI tools helped in the wedding preparations. (A real wedding planner was also hired.) I replied politely. Internally, though, I decided: if my future spouse came to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Romantic Red Flags: AI Usage.

Many individuals have usual romantic dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have flooded my social media and party conversations, I’ve come up with a new one. I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool truly, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my disdain.)

People always ask the “what if” questions. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? What if I use it to help 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 people out there for you. But I am not one of them.

From ‘Ick’ to Ethical Stance.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being repulsed. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered 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 automatic feeling of revulsion that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for seemingly innocent tasks like creating a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a conscious political act. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a placebo for real relationships; isolated, detached people finding 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 ultra-wealthy tech bros in charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

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

The Dating Problem: If Your Partner Relies on ChatGPT.

As if it hadn’t done enough already, ChatGPT has somehow made dating even worse. A close acquaintance recently told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with 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, imagine how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself establishing a meaningful relationship with a person who often uses a tool that diminishes concentration and might lead to societal collapse. Intellectual curiosity, 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 really serving your long-term goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she may use ChatGPT for particular tasks but is not endorse it. In the past six months or so, she states “every one” of her clients has approached her complaining 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 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 future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would presume that’s one of your principles, and it’s important to find someone whose values are aligned with yours.”

More Individuals Voicing AI Apprehensions.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the dating sphere. 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 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 “shows such a lack of initiative”.

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

A recent acquaintance’s breakup was especially messy. She sided with one of them after learning 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 endure 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 dependent on AI to do the simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, has comparable views. “I am not sure if I would think differently 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 probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Tech Backlash.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “rather die” over using AI received significant coverage. 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”. The same goes for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others issued statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I think these quotes go viral for a reason: people sympathize with them.

This attitude exists even among those in the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, comparable content on Instagram. Reports suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals refuse to use AI to write their code.

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