{‘It demonstrates such a lack of effort’: why I refuse to date someone who relies on ChatGPT|The AI Dating Dealbreaker: The Reasons I Refuse to Go Out With a ChatGPT Enthusiast.

It was a scene lifted from a Nancy Meyers movie. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that smelled of stealth wealth, for a friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I told the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if revealing a secret: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I grinned politely as this man explained using artificial intelligence for the initial stages of organizing the wedding. (They also hired a human wedding planner.) I responded politely. Inside, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The Latest Relationship Dealbreaker.

Many individuals have usual romantic dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced doomsday have flooded my news feed and party conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I refuse to see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the object of my disdain.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. Suppose I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? What if I use it to assist people? How about 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.

From ‘Ick’ to Political Stance.

“Getting the ick” is what we sometimes call being repulsed. A key aspect of having an ick is not fully understanding why you found 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 solid reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the tool even for harmless tasks such as planning a fitness routine or deciding what to wear feels an increasingly ethical choice. We are aware that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for real relationships; isolated, detached people discovering companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a sci-fi scenario as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech bros in charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

Sure, ChatGPT can create your shopping list. But does that personal benefit offset the collective negative impact it creates?

A Dating Disaster: If Your Partner Relies on ChatGPT.

It seems ChatGPT has managed to make the dating scene even more difficult. 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 outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to see myself establishing a significant relationship with a person who consistently uses a tool that erodes focus and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, originality, uniqueness – 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.

Consider whether your dating criterion actually fits with your long-term aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she may use ChatGPT for particular tasks but is not endorse it. In the past six months or so, she states “every one” of her clients has come 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 users 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 choice is really serving your long-term goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would assume that’s one of your values, and it’s essential to find someone whose beliefs are in sync with yours.”

Others Who Have the AI Ick.

Other people get the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and works in sound for multiple 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 nearly impossible to disable. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “shows such a laziness”.

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

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a complicated breakup. She supported one of them after learning the other went to ChatGPT, a notoriously 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 continue, which is not how things work.”

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

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise weary. “I don’t know if I would think otherwise 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 likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Well-Known Figures and Silicon Valley Professionals Speaking Out.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “prefer death” than use generative AI, it made news. Similarly, 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 make statements that are skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I think these quotes go viral for a cause: people agree with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who power the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users disable AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, comparable content on Instagram. Sources indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals refuse to use AI to write their code.

{Luciano Noijeen, a lead software engineer working in Greece and the Netherlands, told me that he enthusiastically used AI in the past to write or enhance his coding.|According to Luciano Noijeen, a {lead|