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It felt like a moment straight from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I told the future groom. He leaned in as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled politely as this person described using generative AI for the initial stages of organizing the wedding. (They also hired a human wedding planner.) I responded courteously. Inside, though, I resolved: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Romantic Red Flags: AI Usage.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have dominated my social media and party conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh 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 scorn.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? What if I use it to help people? What if 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.

From Disgust to Ethical Stance.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being repulsed. A key aspect of having an ick is not really understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For example, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that lacked any solid reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for harmless tasks such as planning a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an increasingly political choice. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; 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 bros in charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT assists you write your grocery list. Does your personal ease justify the societal harm it can cause?

How AI Ruins Romance and Connection.

It seems ChatGPT has found a way to make the dating scene even more difficult. A close acquaintance recently told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like picking 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 hard to see myself building a significant relationship with a person who often uses a tool that diminishes concentration and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, 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 spend their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] preference is truly supporting your future goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she may use ChatGPT for specific tasks but doesn’t promote it. In the past six months or so, she states “every one” of her clients has come 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 strike against ChatGPT chumps was too strict. She said no, proceed and judge, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is really serving 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 aligned with yours.”

Others Who Share the AI Ick.

The dislike for AI applies 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 opt out. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a laziness”.

“It’s like you can’t 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 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 didn’t want to endure any uncomfortable human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Suddenly I was unable to do it by myself. I was too reliant on AI to do the simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly 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 don’t need to depend 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.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “rather die” over using AI received significant attention. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade against the tech warning 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 issued statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a reason: people agree with them.

This attitude is present even among those in the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, comparable slop 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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