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The setting could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers film. 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 told the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

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

Contemporary Romantic Dealbreakers: Artificial Intelligence Usage.

Some people have typical relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as warnings of an impending AI-induced doomsday have flooded my social media and social conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program really, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my scorn.)

I’ve encountered all the “what if’s”. What if I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? Imagine if I use it to assist 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.

When a Simple Turn-Off Becomes a Moral Issue.

The term “getting the ick” refers to that sensation of being suddenly turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered 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 automatic feeling of disgust that had no any clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for seemingly simple tasks like designing a workout plan or picking an outfit feels like a deliberate political decision. We know that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; lonely, detached people finding companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a sci-fi scenario as it is just the way things go now. The megarich tech bros in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that individual advantage excuse the wider negative impact it creates?

How ChatGPT Ruins Dating and Connection.

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 pulled out his phone, accessed ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who delegates decisions, including the fun ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself establishing a significant relationship with a person who often uses a tool that erodes focus and might lead to societal collapse. Intellectual curiosity, originality, uniqueness – I likely won’t find what I value in someone who thinks “productivity” means prompting an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to waste their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your relationship preference actually aligns with your life objectives.

Ali Jackson, a romantic coach based in New York, uses ChatGPT for some tasks – but she is not an evangelist. 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 asked Jackson if my rule against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, proceed and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

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

Others Who Share the ChatGPT Aversion.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the dating 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 believes that using ChatGPT “shows 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 lately had a complicated breakup. She supported one of them after learning the other turned to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful therapy alternative, 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 couldn’t do it by myself. I was too dependent on AI to do the most basic things [at work].

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise 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 probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Well-Known Personalities and Tech Professionals Voicing Concerns.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “choose death” over using AI garnered significant attention. Ditto for, 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 critical of AI in their respective industries. I think these quotes spread widely for a cause: people agree 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 suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals won’t use AI to write their code.

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