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The scene could have been pulled from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of stealth wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is perfect,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

My smile was polite as he outlined how AI tools helped in the wedding preparations. (A real wedding planner was eventually brought in.) I replied courteously. Internally, though, I resolved: if my future spouse came to me with wedding input from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Dating Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have usual romantic non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have flooded 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 really, 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 hate it otherwise? Imagine if I use it to assist people? What if I only use it as a editing tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I say: there are people out there for you. But I am not one of them.

How a Minor Turn-Off Turns Into a Moral Issue.

The phrase “getting the ick” refers to that feeling of being unexpectedly disgusted. 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 simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that had no any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a deliberate moral act. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for human connection; lonely, detached people finding 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 executives in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can generate your shopping list. But does that personal advantage offset the wider negative impact it creates?

The Dating Disaster: When Your Date Relies on ChatGPT.

As if it had not done enough already, ChatGPT has somehow made dating even worse. A close acquaintance lately 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 asked for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who outsources decisions, including the fun ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to picture myself establishing a significant bond 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 asking an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to waste 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 relationship coach, she may use ChatGPT for specific purposes 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 inquired Jackson if my rule against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, go forth and evaluate, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses 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 values, and it’s important to find someone whose beliefs are in sync with yours.”

Others Who Share the ChatGPT Aversion.

Other people experience the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. 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 believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates 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.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a complicated breakup. She sided with one of them after learning the other went to ChatGPT, a infamously awful therapy substitute, not their partner, when they needed to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to sit through 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 dependent 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 skeptical. “I don’t know if I would think differently 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 likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “rather die” over using AI received significant attention. Similarly, 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 reason: people sympathize with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, similar slop on Instagram. Sources indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies refuse to use AI to write their code.

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