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The scene could have been pulled from a Nancy Meyers film. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is ideal,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I grinned politely as this person described using artificial intelligence for the early stages of organizing the wedding. (They also employed a human wedding planner.) I replied politely. Internally, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding input from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Romantic Dealbreakers: Artificial Intelligence Use.

Some people have typical relationship non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have dominated my social media and social conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh 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 most popular and thus the target of my disdain.)

People always ask the “what if” scenarios. 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 individuals out there for you. But I am not one of them.

How a Simple Turn-Off Turns Into a Ethical Issue.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being 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 felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a mere ick, a kneejerk feeling of disgust that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for apparently simple tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a deliberate political act. We know that the power-hungry tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; isolated, detached people finding companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a science fiction scenario as it is just the way things go now. The megarich tech bros in control of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that personal benefit offset the collective negative impact it creates?

The Dating Problem: If Your Partner Uses ChatGPT.

It appears ChatGPT has managed to make the dating scene even more difficult. A good friend recently told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

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

Ask yourself if your [dating] choice is truly serving your future goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she may use ChatGPT for specific purposes but doesn’t promote it. In the past six months or so, she states “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 inquired Jackson if my rule against ChatGPT chumps was too strict. She said no, go forth 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 truly 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 beliefs are in sync with yours.”

Others Who Share the AI Aversion.

The dislike 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 almost impossible to opt out. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a lack of initiative”.

“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 messy. She sided with one of them after learning the other turned to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful therapy substitute, 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 couldn’t do it by myself. I was too dependent 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 similarly skeptical. “I am not sure 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 Silicon Valley Professionals Voicing Concerns.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use generative AI, it made news. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech cautioning 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 various industries. I think these quotes go viral for a cause: people agree with them.

This sentiment is present even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely deactivate, similar content 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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