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In the past year, artificial intelligence, better known as AI, has grown exponentially in both popularity and knowledge. It’s been introduced onto many major social media platforms, most notably being Snapchat and its addition of the ‘My AI’ feature, where Snapchat users can interact with their personal AI companions through texting. ChatGPT has become a massive service that garners significant attention for its uncanny ability to generate human-like responses. Amidst all of these seemingly positive developments in AI technology, there is a darker side to AI: a war against women. AI increases sexual exploitation, perpetrates harsh beauty standards, increases gender bias, and disrupts the working lives of women. 

Although there are positives to this intelligence technology, AI holds the greater potential to be used harmfully, especially in sexual misuse of women. With new Deepfake technology, images from a victim’s digital footprint can be edited into false and harmful images, which holds the potential to destroy a career, especially a woman’s career. Recently, sexually explicit videos of Taylor Swift posted onto X (formerly Twitter) that were created with this critical technology. While her career wasn’t ruined, the issue reached Congress and a congressman issued a statement. 

“What happened to Swift is a clear example of AI abuse,” said Congressman Salazar. 

Swift is a large-scale example of harmful AI, but it’s happening on much smaller scales as well. Social media users with large digital footprints and quantities of content can be victims of more in-depth explicit images and videos. This is particularly dangerous for social media influencers who simply want to create entertaining content for their viewers. Women should not have to worry about harmful AI technology destroying their lives. 

The continued rise of AI also brings the potential for even harsher beauty standards for women. Some beauty standards being pushed by AI include a Euro-centric appearance of lighter skin and thinner noses, which do not represent the diversity found in society. If women are constantly being pushed to an unattainable standard of beauty from AI technology, that can cause many psychological problems for women, such as added pressure to get surgeries to look like the ‘new standard.’ Women already have enough pressure to look a certain way. I mean, have you seen Barbie? We don’t need added pressure to look like a robot. It’s blatantly ridiculous and unobtainable. Distorted perceptions of reality are already present on social media platforms through filters and advanced Photoshop technology. AI adds a new layer to the ever-present stress placed on women, one with pressure on beauty that is even more impossible.

AI technology also perpetuates gender bias. AI learns the patterns of its programmers, thus inheriting the flaws and biases present within humanity. A prime example of this is AI’s referral to nurses as female and doctors as male. This is dangerous, as the stereotyping of professions to gender widens the already-present gender gap. There are also adjectives which present a problem, most notably present in the ChatGPT software. According to an article published by Scientific American, ChatGPT tended to mention men using language such as ‘expert,’ ‘integrity’ and ‘authentic.’ For women, AI categorizes them as ‘beauties,’ ‘delights’ and ‘emotional.’ While these stereotypical adjectives have always been present, now AI is inheriting them. This will inevitably cause more problems for women, as the consumers of the AI may also be picking up sexist language and inheriting the apparent gender bias. 

While AI increases gender bias, it also disrupts the working lives of women. As AI finds a way to fulfill jobs, it will mainly impact women. Research from the McKinsey Global Institute shows that the majority of jobs that will be lost due to AI will affect women who don’t have college degrees because these women mainly populate entry-level jobs which are most likely to be replaced with AI. These jobs include retail clerks and administrative assistants, and without job opportunities for women, their working lives will invariably be affected. In fact, AI could disrupt a staggering 80% of women’s jobs. There is already a well-known pay gap between the wages of men and women, but did you know that women also suffer from higher rates of unemployment? If AI replaces jobs which women need, it will cause women to not only lose their jobs but also their economic security, disproportionately affecting the course of their life. 

With all of this said, it is important to distinguish that AI isn’t to blame here. It learns what humans teach it, ultimately, inheriting the faults and biases already present in society. However, the manner in which people utilize AI technology is the larger problem, which is why laws such as the ‘No AI Fraud Act’ should be instituted to ensure the safety of women everywhere. The ‘No AI Fraud Act’, which was introduced by Representatives Dean and Salazar, would ensure that guards would be put in place against sexually exploitative deep fakes and allow women to seek monetary damages for the harm caused. 

Overall, AI is harmful to women in many ways, and it only seems like the harm will increase as AI technology continues to progress. Legislation should be put in place to accommodate this new technology and protect women everywhere.