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The scene could have been pulled from a Nancy Meyers production. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is perfect,” I told the future groom. He leaned in as if revealing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My expression was courteous as he detailed how AI tools assisted in the wedding preparations. (A real wedding planner was eventually hired.) I replied courteously. Inside, however, I decided: if my future spouse approached to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Relationship Non-Negotiable.

Many individuals have standard relationship non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my news feed and social conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I refuse to date someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant 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 hate 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 Issue.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being repulsed. 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 kneejerk feeling of disgust that lacked any clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like creating a workout plan or picking an outfit feels like a conscious political act. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; lonely, disconnected people finding companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a science fiction scenario as it is just the way things go now. The megarich tech bros in control of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that individual benefit excuse the wider damage it creates?

How ChatGPT Ruins Romance and Connection.

As if it hadn’t 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 proposed 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 enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to see myself building a meaningful bond with a person who consistently uses a tool that diminishes concentration and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, originality – I likely won’t find what I value in someone who thinks “productivity” means prompting 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 aligns with your long-term aims.

Ali Jackson, a dating and relationship coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for certain 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 generate everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I asked Jackson if my strike 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 really supporting your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would presume that’s one of your principles, and it’s essential to find someone whose beliefs are aligned with yours.”

Additional Individuals Expressing ChatGPT Apprehensions.

The dislike for AI extends beyond the dating sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and works in sound for various live music venues across the city. She dreams about going into her phone settings and deactivating AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it nearly impossible to disable. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “shows such a lack of initiative”.

“It’s like you are unable to think for yourself, and you have to depend on an app for that,” she said.

A recent acquaintance’s breakup was particularly ugly. She sided with one of them after discovering the other went to ChatGPT, a infamously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they needed to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to endure any uncomfortable human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and move on, which is not how things work.”

Suddenly I couldn’t do it by myself. I was too dependent on AI to do the simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, shares comparable views. “I am not sure if I would think otherwise about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You don’t need to depend on it to make a grocery list. Your life is probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Industry Backlash.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use generative AI, it made headlines. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories rant 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 various industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a cause: people sympathize with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, 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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