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

I smiled tightly as this man explained using artificial intelligence for the early stages of planning the wedding. (They also hired a professional wedding planner.) I replied politely. Internally, though, I decided: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Dating Dealbreaker.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my social media and social conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I will not see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my disdain.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. What if 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 Simple ‘Ick’ Becomes a Moral Stand.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being turned off. Part of having an ick is not really understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. 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 kneejerk feeling of disgust that lacked any solid reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for harmless tasks such as figuring out a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an increasingly political choice. We know that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for human connection; isolated, disconnected people finding companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a sci-fi scenario as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech executives in control of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT assists you write your grocery list. Does your personal convenience outweigh the broader harm it can cause?

How ChatGPT Spoils Romance and Connection.

It appears ChatGPT has managed to make the dating scene even more difficult. A close acquaintance 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 requested for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with 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, imagine how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to picture myself building a significant relationship with a person who often uses a tool that diminishes focus and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, originality, uniqueness – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means prompting an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to waste their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] preference is truly supporting your long-term goals.

Ali Jackson, a romantic coach based in New York, uses ChatGPT for certain tasks – but she is not an evangelist. 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 inquired Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT users was too harsh. She said no, proceed and judge, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your choice is truly serving your long-term 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 in sync with yours.”

Others Who Share the AI Aversion.

The dislike for AI extends beyond the romantic realm. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She dreams about going into her phone settings and deactivating 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 are unable to think for yourself, and you have to rely on an app for that,” she said.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a messy breakup. She sided with one of them after learning the other went to ChatGPT, a infamously poor therapy substitute, 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 deal with 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 most basic things [at work].

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, has similar 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 shouldn’t have to rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Public Personalities and Tech Insiders Voicing Concerns.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” 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 issued statements that are skeptical of AI in their various industries. I think these quotes go viral for a reason: people agree with them.

Even, to an extent, the people who power 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. Sources indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies won’t use AI to write their code.

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