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The setting could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I remarked to the future groom. He leaned in as if revealing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was polite as he outlined how generative AI assisted in the wedding planning. (A real wedding planner was also hired.) I replied courteously. Inside, though, I decided: if my future spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Dating Dealbreakers: AI Use.

Many individuals have usual romantic dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my social media and party conversations, I’ve developed a fresh one. I will not see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my scorn.)

People always pose the “what if” scenarios. 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 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.

When a Minor ‘Ick’ Turns Into a Moral Stand.

“Getting the ick” is what we occasionally call being repulsed. A key aspect of having an ick is not really understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For example, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a mere ick, a kneejerk feeling of disgust that lacked any clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for seemingly innocent tasks like creating a workout plan or picking an outfit feels like a deliberate moral act. We know that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a substitute for human connection; isolated, detached 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 megarich tech bros in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT helps you write your grocery list. Does your personal ease outweigh the societal harm it can cause?

How AI Spoils Dating and Connection.

It appears ChatGPT has managed to make the dating scene even more challenging. A good friend 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 asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who delegates 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 minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot imagine forming a profound, long-term connection with someone who regularly interacts with a technology that’s weakening our collective attention spans and possibly signaling total apocalypse. Inquisitiveness, originality, originality – I likely won’t find what I prize 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.

Ask yourself if your [dating] preference is truly serving your long-term goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she may use ChatGPT for specific tasks but is not promote 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 create 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, proceed and judge, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is truly serving 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.”

More People Voicing ChatGPT Concerns.

Other people get the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, lives 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 almost 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.

A recent acquaintance’s split was especially 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 endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I found not handle it on my own. I had grown too dependent on AI for the basic tasks.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly skeptical. “I am not sure 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.”

Public Personalities and Tech Professionals Voicing Concerns.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “choose death” over using generative AI received significant coverage. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech warning about “environmental racism” and showing 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 respective industries. I think these quotes go viral for a reason: 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 hide, but not entirely remove, similar content on Instagram. Reports indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies won’t use AI to write their code.

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