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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 perfect,” I remarked to the future groom. He moved closer as if revealing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

I grinned tightly as this person described using generative AI for the early stages of organizing the wedding. (They also hired a professional wedding planner.) I replied courteously. Inside, though, I resolved: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Dating Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have standard romantic non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have flooded my news feed and social conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I refuse to see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my scorn.)

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 people out there for you. But I am not one of them.

From ‘Ick’ to Political Stance.

The term “getting the ick” describes that sensation of being unexpectedly turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you found someone’s behavior so off-putting. 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 automatic feeling of disgust that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a conscious political decision. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; lonely, disconnected people discovering 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 control of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

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

How ChatGPT Ruins Romance and Connection.

As if it hadn’t done enough already, ChatGPT has somehow made dating even worse. A good friend recently told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who delegates decisions, including the fun ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot imagine forming a profound, lasting connection with someone who regularly interacts with a technology that’s kneecapping our collective attention spans and possibly heralding total apocalypse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, originality – I likely 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 spend their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your relationship criterion actually fits with your life objectives.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she may use ChatGPT for particular tasks but doesn’t 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 generate everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I asked Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, proceed 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 really supporting your long-term goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would presume that’s one of your principles, and it’s essential to find someone whose values are in sync with yours.”

Others Who Share the ChatGPT Ick.

The dislike for AI extends beyond the romantic sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, lives 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 opt out. 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.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a messy breakup. She sided with one of them after discovering 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 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.”

Before long, I could not manage it on my own. I had become 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 likewise weary. “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.”

Celebrity and Tech Resistance.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “choose death” over using generative AI received significant attention. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant 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 believe these quotes spread widely for a reason: people sympathize with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely remove, comparable slop on Instagram. Reports indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals refuse to use AI to write their code.

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