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The scene could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if sharing a secret: “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 professional wedding planner.) I replied courteously. Inside, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The New Dating Non-Negotiable.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my news feed and social conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I will not see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the target of my scorn.)

People often ask the “what if” questions. Suppose I use it for my job, but I hate it otherwise? What 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 ‘Ick’ to Ethical Position.

The term “getting the ick” refers to that feeling of being suddenly turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For instance, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a mere ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that lacked any clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for seemingly simple tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a deliberate moral decision. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is sold as a placebo for real relationships; lonely, disconnected people discovering companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a sci-fi plot point as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech bros 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?

How ChatGPT Spoils Dating and Intimacy.

As if it had not done enough already, ChatGPT has in some way made dating even worse. A close acquaintance lately 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 build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the fun 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 difficult to see myself establishing a meaningful bond with a person who consistently uses a tool that erodes focus and might bring about societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, originality – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who thinks “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 relationship preference genuinely aligns with your long-term aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she does use ChatGPT for specific tasks but doesn’t promote it. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has come her complaining about “chatfishing” or people who use AI to create 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 strict. She said no, go forth and judge, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your choice is really supporting your future 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 aligned with yours.”

Additional Individuals Voicing AI Concerns.

Other people experience the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and works in sound for various 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 disable. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates 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 supported one of them after learning the other went to ChatGPT, a notoriously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they needed to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they didn’t want to sit through 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 found not handle 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 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 rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “rather die” over using generative AI garnered significant attention. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant 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 issued statements that are skeptical of AI in their various industries. I think these quotes go viral for a cause: people agree with them.

This sentiment exists even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, comparable slop on Instagram. Reports 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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