Your wedding is meant to be one of the most important days in your life, and your vows are supposed to be the crowning jewel that makes the entire celebration of love shine. The problem is that writing vows is, well, incredibly difficult. Many people struggle to pen exactly how much they love their soulmate. But it’s through that struggle that you show your genuine feelings.
However, one groom had a different idea. He went viral all over the internet after he revealed how he used ChatGPT to write his vows. However, his bride instantly picked up on it and walked out. The distraught and confused man then turned to the internet for some advice, and people didn’t hold back.
Read on for the full story, in two parts. Meanwhile, Bored Panda has reached out to the author for comment, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from him.
Your wedding vows are meant to be incredibly personal. After all, nobody knows why you love your soulmate better than you
Image credits: Alexander Mass / unsplash (not the actual photo)
One groom watched his entire relationship implode when the bride instantly figured out that he used ChatGPT to 'write' his vows
Image credits: JuiceFlair / envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: ThrowRA-Badvows
Using AI for something as sensitive as your wedding vows might make your partner feel like you don't respect them enough to try your best
From your truly’s subjective perspective, using a chatbot to write anything emotional, sensitive, or impactful, especially your wedding vows, is a huge mistake.
No shade, but situations like this one are where you need to let your humanity and empathy shine through. And that means putting in the time, energy, sweat, and years to write (then edit, trash, rewrite, throw out, and yet again rewrite) your vows.
Writing is meant to be a struggle. It’s through this struggle that you understand your own feelings, actively think about your relationship with new and old ideas, and develop your worldview. It’s also how you connect with the world around you… and with your partner!
To put it bluntly, writing forces you to think. Meanwhile, when you outsource your creativity to a large language model (LLM), you’re allowing your mind to atrophy because you’re setting your critical thinking and emotions aside.
That’s on top of the fact that many people will feel disrespected when they realize you’re not putting in the effort to communicate with them. Why should they bother reading or listening to something that a person didn’t think was worth the effort to create themselves?
Using chatbot-generated text is incredibly impersonal because of how generic these tools are. And, to be clear, it’s most often very obvious when someone has outsourced their creativity to ChatGPT. You might not think it is, but it is.
And if we learned that anyone we knew was using a chatbot to write their wedding vows, we’d be seriously concerned. If they’re good friends of ours, we’d pull them aside before the Big Day and explain to them why it’s a mistake. Your vows, even if ‘imperfect,’ are still worth more when they’re written authentically by you.
Chatbots are absolutely awful for your critical thinking and learning skills
Image credits: Solen Feyissa / unsplash (not the actual photo)
As reported by Time magazine, based on recent research by MIT’s Media Lab, using LLMs can harm learning, development, and critical thinking abilities, especially in the case of younger users.
According to the study, where subjects were asked to write essays using ChatGPT, Google, or nothing at all, chatbot users had the lowest brain engagement. They “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”
As the study went on, over the next several months, ChaGPT users got lazier and lazier, putting in less effort with each new essay. By the end of the study, they often just copied and pasted AI-generated text.
“From a psychiatric standpoint, I see that overreliance on these LLMs can have unintended psychological and cognitive consequences, especially for young people whose brains are still developing. These neural connections that help you in accessing information, the memory of facts, and the ability to be resilient: all that is going to weaken,” psychiatrist Dr. Zishan Khan told Time.
To be clear, it’s natural to get writer’s block when you’re writing something incredibly impactful. You want to leave a positive impression on your significant other, your family, your friends, and all the people you love. And nobody wants to make a fool of themselves in front of crowd of people whose respect they want.
Your vows should focus on your unique understanding of your soulmate, but they don't have to be 'perfect'
Image credits: Sebastian Romero / unsplash (not the actual photo)
According to The Knot, you should try not to let the entire situation stress you out too much. You’re not supposed to summarize your entire relationship in your vows!
“The most essential vow is your commitment to the marriage, which is covered with your 'I do.' Your marriage will change so much over the years, and you can renew and even change them in the future. It's not a concrete summary of your relationship; it's the beginning of a promise that is alive and will grow as you do,” coach and officiant Maureen Cotton, from The Soulful Wedding, explained to The Knot.
You ought to make things very personal and go deeper than the officiant, your family, and friends will be able to when talking about your relationship.
“What is one thing that only you can say to your beloved? Answer that and you'll have unique vows from the heart,” Cotton suggests.
What do you think, dear Pandas? What’s your take on the sensitive situation? Do you think the groom was wrong to use AI to write his vows, or do you think the bride overreacted? Would you ever write your wedding vows with ChatGPT? How do you think your partner would react to that? What's the worst thing you've witnessed at someone's Big Day? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Most readers disagreed with the man. Here's their perspective on the wedding drama
However, a handful of people actually had the groom's back. Here's their take
Image credits: StudioPeace / envato (not the actual photo)
Later, the man shared an update about how he tried to fix his relationship
Image credits: ThrowRA-Badvows
Here's what internet users had to say after reading the follow-up to the saga
