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The setting could have been pulled from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is perfect,” I told the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if revealing a confidential detail: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was courteous as he detailed how generative AI assisted in the wedding preparations. (A real wedding planner was also brought in.) I replied courteously. Inside, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Romantic Dealbreakers: Artificial Intelligence Use.

Many individuals have standard relationship non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, wants kids. During the past few months, as warnings of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my news feed and social conversations, I’ve come up with a new 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 dominant and thus the target of my disdain.)

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

From ‘Ick’ to Political Stance.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being repulsed. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you found someone’s behavior so unseemly. For instance, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a mere ick, a automatic feeling of disgust that had no any solid reasoning.

But here we are, in autumn 2025, and using the program even for benign tasks such as planning a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an increasingly ethical choice. We are aware that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for human connection; lonely, disconnected people finding 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 ultra-wealthy tech executives in charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that personal advantage excuse the wider negative impact it causes?

How AI Ruins Dating and Intimacy.

It seems ChatGPT has found a way to make the romantic scene even more challenging. A close acquaintance lately told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and asked 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 lazy they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to see myself establishing a meaningful relationship with a person who often uses a tool that diminishes concentration and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, originality, originality – I probably 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 truly serving your future goals.

Ali Jackson, a dating and relationship coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for certain tasks – but she is not an evangelist. In the past six months or so, she says “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 users was too harsh. She said no, proceed and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is truly supporting your long-term 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.”

Others Who Share the AI Aversion.

The dislike for AI applies beyond the romantic realm. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for multiple 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 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.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a complicated 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 refused to endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I found not manage it on my own. I had grown too dependent on AI for the routine work.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly skeptical. “I don’t know 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.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use AI tools, it made news. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech cautioning 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 skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes spread widely for a reason: people agree with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely remove, similar slop on Instagram. Sources 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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