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The scene could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I told the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I found it on ChatGPT.”

My smile was courteous as he outlined how AI tools helped in the wedding planning. (A human wedding planner was eventually hired.) I replied politely. Inside, though, I decided: if my future spouse approached to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Dating Red Flags: Artificial Intelligence Usage.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have dominated my news feed and social conversations, I’ve come up with a new one. I will not see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the object of my disdain.)

People often ask the “what if” scenarios. What if I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? What if I use it to help people? What if I only use it as a proofreading tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I say: there are individuals out there for you. But I am not one of them.

How a Minor Turn-Off Becomes a Moral Issue.

The term “getting the ick” refers to that feeling of being unexpectedly turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so off-putting. For example, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a mere ick, a automatic feeling of revulsion that lacked any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in autumn 2025, and using the tool even for harmless tasks such as figuring out a fitness routine or choosing what to wear feels an more and more ethical choice. We know that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a placebo for human connection; lonely, detached people finding companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a science fiction scenario as it is just the way things go now. The megarich tech executives in control of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT helps you write your grocery list. Does your individual convenience justify the societal harm it can cause?

The Romantic Disaster: When Your Date Uses ChatGPT.

It appears ChatGPT has found a way to make the romantic scene even more challenging. A good friend recently told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, opened 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 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 erodes focus and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, uniqueness – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means asking an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your relationship preference actually fits with your long-term aims.

Ali Jackson, a dating and relationship coach based in New York, uses ChatGPT for certain tasks – but she is not an evangelist. In the past six months or so, she states “every one” of her clients has approached her expressing concern 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, go forth and evaluate, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

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

More Individuals Voicing AI Concerns.

Other people experience the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about going into 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 believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a lack of initiative”.

“It’s like you can’t think for yourself, and you have to depend on an app for that,” she said.

A recent friend’s breakup was especially messy. She sided with one of them after discovering the other went to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful 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 was unable to do it by myself. I was too reliant on AI to do the most basic things [at work].

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, has comparable sentiments. “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 depend on it to make a grocery list. Your life is likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Well-Known Figures and Tech Insiders 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 tirade against the tech cautioning 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 make statements that are skeptical of AI in their various industries. I think these quotes spread widely for a reason: people agree with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who run the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely deactivate, similar content on Instagram. Reports 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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