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

My smile was courteous as he detailed how AI tools assisted in the wedding preparations. (A human wedding planner was eventually brought in.) I replied courteously. Inside, though, I decided: if my future spouse approached to me with wedding input from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Dating Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have standard romantic non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. During the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my news feed and party conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh one. I will not 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 scorn.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? Imagine 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 say: there are individuals out there for you. But I am not one of them.

How a Minor Turn-Off Becomes a Moral Issue.

The term “getting the ick” describes that sensation of being suddenly turned off. Part 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 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 seemingly simple tasks like creating a workout plan or picking an outfit feels like a deliberate moral act. We know that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a substitute for real relationships; isolated, detached people discovering 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 megarich tech bros in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

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

How AI Spoils Dating and Intimacy.

As if it had not done enough already, ChatGPT has somehow made dating even worse. 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, 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 lazy they’ll hit up 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 interacts with a technology that’s weakening our shared attention spans and perhaps heralding total apocalypse. Intellectual curiosity, creativity, originality – I probably won’t find what I prize 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 long-term aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she may use ChatGPT for specific purposes but is not 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 generate everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I inquired Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT users was too harsh. She said no, proceed and evaluate, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is truly supporting your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your values, and it’s important to find someone whose beliefs are in sync with yours.”

More People Voicing ChatGPT Apprehensions.

The dislike for AI applies beyond the romantic realm. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about going into 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 thinks that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a lack of initiative”.

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

A recent friend’s split was particularly ugly. She supported one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful therapy substitute, not their partner, when they needed to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they didn’t want 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.”

Eventually, I found not manage it on my own. I had grown too reliant on AI for the basic work.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly weary. “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 depend on it to make a grocery list. Your life is likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Public Figures and Tech Professionals Voicing Concerns.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use AI tools, it made news. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech warning 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 various 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 introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, similar slop on Instagram. Sources suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies won’t use AI to write their code.

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