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The scene 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 ideal,” I remarked to the future groom. He moved closer as if revealing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled politely as this man described using artificial intelligence for the initial stages of organizing the wedding. (They also hired a professional wedding planner.) I replied politely. Inside, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Romantic Red Flags: Artificial Intelligence Usage.

Some people have common relationship non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have dominated my social media and party conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I refuse to see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my scorn.)

People often ask the “what if” scenarios. What if 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 editing 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.

When a Minor Turn-Off Turns Into a Ethical Issue.

The term “getting the ick” describes that feeling of being unexpectedly turned off. Part of having an ick is not really understanding why you found someone’s behavior so off-putting. For example, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a mere ick, a automatic 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 picking an outfit feels like a deliberate moral decision. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for human connection; lonely, detached people discovering companionship or even falling in love 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 prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

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

The Dating Problem: When Your Partner Relies on ChatGPT.

As if it had not done enough already, ChatGPT has in some way made dating even worse. A good friend recently told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning proposed 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 enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot imagine forming a profound, lasting connection with someone who regularly engages with a technology that’s weakening our shared attention spans and possibly signaling total apocalypse. Intellectual curiosity, creativity, uniqueness – I likely won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means asking 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 fits with your long-term aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she does use ChatGPT for particular tasks but doesn’t endorse it. 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 rule against ChatGPT chumps was too strict. She said no, go forth and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

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

Others Who Share the AI Ick.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the dating realm. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and does sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She dreams about going into 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 “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.

A recent acquaintance’s split was particularly messy. She supported one of them after learning the other went to ChatGPT, a notoriously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to sit through any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Eventually, I could not manage it on my own. I had become too dependent on AI for even routine tasks.

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

Public Figures and Tech Insiders Voicing Concerns.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “rather die” over using generative AI received significant coverage. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech cautioning 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 think these quotes spread widely for a reason: people sympathize with them.

This attitude is present even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, similar content on Instagram. Reports indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals won’t use AI to write their code.

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