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It felt like a scene lifted from a Nancy Meyers movie. 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 ideal,” I remarked to the future groom. He leaned in as if sharing a confidential detail: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled politely as this person described using artificial intelligence for the initial stages of organizing the wedding. (They also employed a professional wedding planner.) I responded courteously. Internally, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Romantic Red Flags: Artificial Intelligence Use.

Many individuals have usual romantic dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my social media and social conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I refuse to see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my scorn.)

People often pose the “what if” scenarios. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? Imagine if I use it to assist people? What if 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.

How a Simple ‘Ick’ Turns Into a Ethical Stand.

“Getting the ick” is what we occasionally call being repulsed. A key aspect 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. At first, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that lacked any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for benign tasks such as figuring out a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an increasingly political choice. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for real relationships; isolated, disconnected people discovering companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a science fiction plot point as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech executives in charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT assists you write your grocery list. Does your personal convenience justify the broader harm it can cause?

How ChatGPT Ruins Romance and Connection.

It appears ChatGPT has found a way to make the romantic scene even more challenging. 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 delegates decisions, including the enjoyable ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to picture myself building a significant bond with a person who consistently uses a tool that diminishes concentration and might bring about societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, 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 waste their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] choice is really serving your long-term goals.

Ali Jackson, a romantic coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for some tasks – but she is not an advocate. In the past six months or so, she states “every one” of her clients has approached 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 rule against ChatGPT users was too harsh. She said no, go forth and judge, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

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

Others Who Have the ChatGPT Ick.

Other people get the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for various 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 almost impossible to disable. Pereira thinks 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 sided with 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 endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I could not manage it on my own. I had grown too reliant on AI for the basic work.

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, shares similar views. “I am not sure 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 Silicon Valley Professionals Speaking Out.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “choose death” over using AI garnered significant coverage. 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”. Ditto still for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others make 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 disable AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely remove, similar content on Instagram. Reports suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies won’t use AI to write their code.

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