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The setting could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is perfect,” I told the future groom. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was courteous as he outlined how AI tools helped in the wedding preparations. (A human wedding planner was eventually brought in.) I responded politely. Internally, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The New Relationship Dealbreaker.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as warnings of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my news feed and party conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the object of my disdain.)

I’ve encountered all the “what if’s”. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? Imagine if I use it to help people? How about I only use it as a proofreading tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I respond: 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 occasionally call being repulsed. A key aspect 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. At first, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a mere ick, a kneejerk feeling of disgust that had no any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for benign tasks such as planning a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an more and more ethical choice. We are aware that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is sold as a substitute for human connection; isolated, disconnected people discovering 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 control of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that individual advantage offset the collective damage it creates?

How AI Ruins Dating and Connection.

It appears ChatGPT has found a way to make the dating scene even more difficult. A good friend recently told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to 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 see myself establishing a meaningful relationship with a person who consistently uses a tool that erodes concentration and might bring about societal collapse. Intellectual curiosity, originality, originality – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means prompting an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your dating preference actually aligns with your long-term aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she does use ChatGPT for specific tasks but doesn’t endorse it. 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 inquired Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT users was too strict. She said no, proceed and judge, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your choice is really supporting your long-term goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your principles, and it’s important to find someone whose values are in sync with yours.”

More Individuals Expressing AI Apprehensions.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the romantic realm. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and works in sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She dreams 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 disable. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “shows such a laziness”.

“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 lately had a messy breakup. She sided with one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a infamously awful 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 continue, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I found not handle it on my own. I had grown too reliant on AI for even 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 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 Professionals Speaking Out.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use generative AI, it made news. 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 respective industries. I think these quotes go viral for a cause: people sympathize with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who power the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, comparable slop on Instagram. Reports 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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