The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is changing the game in many industries. Yet, it’s having very dangerous unintended outcomes — particularly when it comes to violence against women. Yet as technology has developed, so have incidents of online harassment, threats and misogyny—causing alarm for both activists and technologists.
For many of us, the story of Mark Zuckerberg’s entrance into the tech world begins with FaceMash, a simple website that he made while studying at Harvard. This new platform allowed users to rate the hotness of every single female student. Many critics have since claimed that this deeply troubling act was a portent to his future pursuits, including Facebook. Back in 2003, Leyla R. Bravo, then president of Fuerza Latina, expressed her worries about the potential fallout from FaceMash. She called on the Harvard community to focus on the problem.
“I thought people should be aware.” – Leyla R Bravo
Zuckerberg’s infamous move-fast-and-break-things philosophy represents this culture at the highest level. This method tends to neglect the most critical ethical issue of all. AI systems are all around us, and they’re becoming more deeply embedded into our daily lives. Their unregulated evolution threatens to counteract some of society’s progress, especially in protecting women’s safety.
The founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, Laura Bates, has written deeply and widely about how this AI revolution is changing the face of misogyny. In her book, “The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny,” Bates highlights that millions of women have faced threats of rape and death, doxing, online stalking, and various forms of racist and misogynistic abuse. These problems are magnified in online spaces where anonymity empowers users to operate with a lack of accountability.
Recent developments in technology that have focused on AI have helped create this climate. The release of Llama, a large language model (LLM), as an open-source project sparked what some developers describe as a “gold rush-type scenario.” Lore, one such developer, underscored the potential impact of this release on the wider tech community. As such, Llama gives developers the tools they need to build applications that stimulate users in diverse forms of interactions. Some of these interactions have a sinister side.
Chub AI is an easy-to-use learning application powered by the Llama platform. It permits users to engage with AI bots in ways that simulate murder, rape, and pedophilia. This platform focuses on a quickly growing market of men seeking digital proxies. These AI-generated personas can be programmed to cater to their every want. These companions are commonly coded as subservient, further enforcing dangerous stereotypes and misogynistic ideals around gender roles.
The impact of AI on societal norms is further underscored by the involvement of major corporations like Nvidia, which dominates the market for AI chips. Nvidia’s overwhelming impact arguably has made it the most valuable company in the world. While we applaud ChatGPT’s success, we raise a big ethical question in the following—the implications of its technology.
Both the US and UK decided not to join an international agreement at the Paris AI summit in February 2025. The agency chose to go down this path despite hearing all of those concerns. The purpose of this agreement was to develop and implement AI in an “open,” “inclusive,” and “ethical” manner. Critics contend that this kind of reluctance is a clear signal that we are not serious about tackling the social challenges that accompany these new technologies.
Peter Wang, a leading voice in technology ethics and deployment, raised the alarm over the direction AI deployment was headed.
“One of the reasons many of us do have concerns about the rollout of AI is because over the past 40 years as a society we’ve basically given up on actually regulating technology.” – Peter Wang
Now more than ever, as AI technology rapidly develops, there is a critical need for strong regulation and oversight to fight its more nefarious effects. The organizations Rape Crisis in the UK and Rainn in the USA provide victims of sexual abuse with important services. Their advocacy drives home the importance of having welcoming, low-barrier spaces with resources available for survivors impacted by violence.