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The setting could have been pulled from a Nancy Meyers film. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I told the future groom. He moved closer as if sharing a secret: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

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

Modern Romantic Red Flags: Artificial Intelligence Usage.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my news feed and party conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh one. I will not see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool truly, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the target of my disdain.)

People often ask the “what if” questions. Suppose I use it for my job, but I hate it otherwise? Imagine 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 respond: there are individuals out there for you. But I am not one of them.

From ‘Ick’ to Political Stance.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you found someone’s behavior so off-putting. For instance, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for seemingly innocent tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a deliberate political act. We know that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; lonely, 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 megarich 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 ease outweigh the broader harm it can cause?

A Dating Problem: If Your Partner Uses ChatGPT.

It appears ChatGPT has found a way to make the dating scene even more challenging. 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 asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the fun ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself building a significant relationship with a person who often uses a tool that erodes concentration 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 summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to waste their time, you know, watching it.

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

Ali Jackson, a dating and relationship coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for some tasks – but she is not an advocate. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has come her expressing concern 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 strike against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, go forth 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 supporting your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your principles, and it’s important to find someone whose beliefs are aligned with yours.”

Additional People Voicing ChatGPT Concerns.

The aversion for AI extends beyond the dating realm. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes 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 opt out. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “shows such a laziness”.

“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 particularly ugly. She supported one of them after learning the other turned to ChatGPT, a infamously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they didn’t want to endure any uncomfortable human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and move on, which is not how things work.”

Eventually, I found not handle it on my own. I had grown too dependent on AI for even basic tasks.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise skeptical. “I am not sure if I would think otherwise 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 Silicon Valley Insiders Voicing Concerns.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “rather die” over using generative AI received significant coverage. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories tirade 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 various industries. I believe these quotes spread widely for a cause: people agree with them.

This attitude is present even among those in the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely deactivate, comparable slop on Instagram. Sources suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies refuse to use AI to write their code.

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