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The scene could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers production. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if revealing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was polite as he outlined how AI tools helped in the wedding planning. (A real wedding planner was also hired.) I responded courteously. Inside, however, I resolved: if my future spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The New Dating Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have usual relationship non-negotiables. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my news feed and party conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the target of my scorn.)

People always ask the “what if” questions. What if I use it for my job, but I hate it otherwise? What if I use it to assist people? How about I only use it as a editing 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.

How a Minor Turn-Off Becomes a Ethical Stand.

The phrase “getting the ick” refers to that sensation of being suddenly turned off. 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. At first, 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 innocent tasks like creating a workout plan or picking an outfit feels like a deliberate political decision. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for real relationships; lonely, detached people finding companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a science fiction plot point 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.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that personal benefit excuse the collective damage it creates?

How AI Ruins 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 went out with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and requested 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 unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot imagine forming a profound, long-term connection with someone who regularly interacts with a technology that’s weakening our collective attention spans and perhaps signaling total apocalypse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, uniqueness – I likely 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 waste their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] choice is really supporting your future goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she does use ChatGPT for specific purposes but doesn’t 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 rule against ChatGPT chumps was too strict. She said no, proceed 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 supporting your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your values, and it’s essential to find someone whose values are aligned with yours.”

Others Who Have the AI Aversion.

The aversion for AI extends beyond the romantic sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She dreams about accessing her phone settings and deactivating 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 laziness”.

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

Two of Pereira’s friends lately had a messy breakup. She supported one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a infamously poor therapy alternative, not their partner, when they needed to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they didn’t want to endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Eventually, I could not handle it on my own. I had become too reliant on AI for even routine tasks.

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, has comparable sentiments. “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 probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “choose death” over using AI received significant attention. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant 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 make statements that are skeptical of AI in their various industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a reason: people agree with them.

This sentiment exists even among those in the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely remove, 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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