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It was a moment lifted from a Nancy Meyers movie. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is ideal,” I remarked to the future groom. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was polite as he detailed how AI tools helped in the wedding planning. (A human wedding planner was also brought in.) I replied courteously. Inside, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Relationship Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have standard relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have dominated my news feed and party conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I refuse to see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my disdain.)

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

From Disgust to Political Position.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being repulsed. A key aspect of having an ick is not fully 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 aversion felt like a mere ick, a kneejerk feeling of disgust that lacked any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for harmless tasks such as figuring out a fitness routine or choosing what to wear feels an increasingly ethical choice. We know that the power-hungry tech depletes our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for real relationships; isolated, detached people finding companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a science fiction scenario as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech executives in charge 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 societal harm it can cause?

A Dating Problem: When Your Date Relies on ChatGPT.

As if it hadn’t done enough already, ChatGPT has in some way made dating even worse. A close acquaintance recently told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who outsources decisions, including the fun ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to see myself building a significant bond with a person who often uses a tool that erodes concentration and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, originality – I probably won’t find what I value in someone who believes “productivity” means asking 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 preference actually fits with your life objectives.

Ali Jackson, a dating and relationship coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for certain tasks – but she is not an advocate. In the past six months or so, she states “every one” of her clients has come 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 rule against ChatGPT users was too strict. 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 truly 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 beliefs are in sync with yours.”

Others Who Share the ChatGPT Ick.

The aversion for AI extends beyond the dating realm. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and works in 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 nearly impossible to opt out. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “shows such a lack of initiative”.

“It’s like you can’t think for yourself, and you have to rely on an app for that,” she said.

A recent friend’s breakup was particularly ugly. She supported one of them after learning the other went to ChatGPT, a notoriously poor therapy alternative, 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.”

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

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly skeptical. “I am not sure if I would think otherwise about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You don’t need to rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Well-Known Figures and Silicon Valley Professionals Voicing Concerns.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “choose death” over using generative AI garnered significant coverage. 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”. The same goes for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others make statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes spread widely for a cause: people sympathize 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 hide, but not entirely deactivate, similar content on Instagram. Sources suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies refuse to use AI to write their code.

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