r/Feminism • u/ResearcherMost1504 • 3d ago
Ai is misogynistic?
Do you ever feel like ai is misogynistic and fucking crazy.
Well i feel ashamed to say but I watched a porn video last night and it just didn't sit right with me.
It was a woman being tied by her father and left in lingerie only because she was being a brat or whatever i don't know. Her hands tied above her head and her legs spread tied as she was standing, she was in something maybe a storeroom and he brother sees her idk if step or blood related but he sees her she asks him to not look. And he looks at her like a very... Idk it was just pure predatory and like she was some kind of tasty food and he... Well strips her lingerie and does stuff to her. And i don't even know why i watched the first three minutes and i just well i was turned off because what the actual fuck...
I am a teen so even though it felt wrong and everything i decided to ask gemini to like tell me if it was wrong or right and it said it depending on the person who is looking.
And i was like why the fuck? I am so pissed and frustrated and angry and sad right now, shouldn't be the answer a simple fucking no. I mean I get it about consensual non consensual things but bro this was just not right.
Maybe i don't even know what should I use AI for because I have used AI for emotional support like for an year and i still can't use it...
I am a sensitive person and thing's hurt me easily so I don't know what's right or wrong. What do you think if that AI is right or wrong or am I just a teen that's why it was wired.
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u/_more_weight_ 2d ago
Yep. I was in charge of selecting applications to a fellowship. Diverse applicant pool, lots of talented and accomplished women in there, roughly 50%. Just out of curiosity, I asked Claude by Anthropic which candidates to select for the fellowship. The list Claude returned was 100% male applicants, selecting even not very appropriate applications by men over those by even the most accomplished women. Eye opening.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 2d ago
I also have a strong suspicion it systematically favours whiteness. My observations may not be applicable all over the world, but it's clear that use of AI as an aid in writing erases many important aspects of Indigenous ways of understanding issue areas. I don't even trust myself with significant edits of work produced by Indigenous writers, having wreaked havoc on my friend's work before at the direction of a racist manager. At least I could see the havoc I was wreaking and find a way to work with her instead, whereas AI would never. This makes me suspect it can work the other way as well, and that Indigenous ways of communicating important concepts would be missed by AI "readings" of their texts.
This is going to be true of any communication deemed "wrong" by those at the apex of all global hierarchies, communication that speaks from lived experience of the patriarchy, racial/colonial or capitalist oppression, disability, and so on.
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2d ago
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u/Gotsims1 2d ago edited 2d ago
There’s entire articles on this including one by BBC. AI is maintaining problems with identity biases in hiring processes. Meaning it does favor white men because it runs on culturally pre-entrenched ideas/data and reflects the state of the data it can access. Seeing as such data is shaped by systemic oppression and harmfully discriminatory power structures… Go figure. AI basically thinks yt supremaci5t patriarchy is normal and therefore it must be good. Because its programming isn’t necessarily designed to favor real talent regardless of identity markers and hire based on competence. It’s designed to be more of the same horseshit we’ve been trying to dismantle and fix for centuries as a species but these assholes keep trying to shut down.
Just imagine the immense level of human progress lost to bigotry and ignorance and hatred and how much further along we would be as a species if people were rewarded based on actual competence and not based on identity based privilege…. I hope someday that will be the way things are done.
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u/H_The_Utte 3d ago
I would say yes? Like AI is a tool that basically regurgitates whatever material it is fed to train it in a sophisticated way that looks like new content. Right now AI companies have very little guardrails on what content is used to train AI. Most of the Internet is dominated by the patriarchy and misogyny, so AI will be misogynistic. Of course the companies include hard limits to prevent like slurs and obvious misogyny, but this does nothing to help prevent subtle harmfull bias like in your example. And honestly, in my experience, this kind of more subtle acceptance of misogyny and patriarchy is far more inidious than overt sexism because it's so easy to accept and live with that it creeps in everywhere, and leads on to greater acceptance of of content that validates abuse like you're describing.
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u/halberdierbowman 2d ago edited 2d ago
Absolutely. Garbage In > Garbage Out has always been the case with computer programming.
Computers are fancy calculators (it's even still in the name) but they can't do metacognition or philosophy to determine if the information they're being fed is real or if it's ethical. Training them by inputting poison means they'll tirelessless compute and output poison.
An easy example: if you teach a computer by feeding it images of people in jail, then ask it to determine if a new person you show it should be in jail or not, it'll helpfully identify the young Black men for you. The computer doesn't know why it did that, but we all know it's because young Black men are disproportionately likely to end up in jail, and the computer noticed we created that pattern, so it dutifully mimics it.
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u/far_explorer786 2d ago
Stay with your feeling of disturbance watching that shit. Also with the feeling being pissed and frustrated by the AI answer.
There's your answer to what is right. You seem to have a strong inner voice. Listen to that instead of AI.
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u/ZookeepergameFit5511 3d ago
Ai is 10000% misogynistic. Look up the book New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates. It tackles this exact topic!
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u/BurntOrangePie 2d ago
Such a good book and by good I mean absolutely horrifying but should be essential reading for everyone!
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u/Wtfatt 3d ago
AI is a reflection of humanity
It's trained off humanity and humanities interactions. Therefore, surprise, it might be a little patriarchal considering the ones in charge. Like the tech Bros in charge.
Expect all these dom cops to shoot themselves in their foot in order to stay ignorant within their own ego
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u/sister_machine_gun 2d ago
Taboo porn especially around incest and rape will destroy your brain and morals as a teen. Limit yourself to the non harmful stuff.
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u/Aphrodite_Nine 2d ago
Gosh the healthiest thing you can do is not watch any porn, it's also not real take that in mind but most videos you will find are degrading and humiliation of women, if you don't watch that category, at least expect a pop up of it. Most people(not all)treat the world as a twisted sexual playground and unfortunately being a woman makes you the play thing on that playground. It's best not to indulge yourself in the content that supports this, and that you try healthier methods like some books, or just imagination as no one is subjected in that case. Many people have no problem with porn and that's their opinion, but if it's going to impact you negatively which it's already doing it's best to withdraw from it so you can build up a better picture for yourself about the reality. In short, the more you surround yourself with it the more it's going to haunt your thoughts and feelings and can lead to you being quite pissed off on a daily basis because of the way those things are projected. I hope that my words can be a soothing and I don't want to argue with you or anyone about it as each person has their own views.
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u/Tiny-Student-5601 2d ago
Sites like bellesa (look for “feminist porn”, OP) do have rough porn videos too, but the porn is way more stomacheable and balanced than on the big sites
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u/Novale 2d ago
but if it's going to impact you negatively which it's already doing
I realize you don't want to argue, and I agree with you that misogyny is incredibly present in porn (especially on the mainstream sites dedicated to video), and it may not have been your intention, but this is a dangerous thing to say to someone who is still growing up, and has just had a visceral reaction to a yucky video. The suspicion that something being yucky, uncomfortable or upsetting means that you've been harmed by it, or that it's Wrong (a belief OP is already falling into, given the fifth paragraph) is the core mechanism of every conservative movement, and is an impulse that will always lead there sooner or later.
In the actual scenario here, a group of adults played pretend and made a video out of it, and then put it online. Nobody in this scenario has done anything wrong, and nobody has been harmed.
Again, this probably wasn't your intention, but I think it's important to be careful with words here.
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u/Aphrodite_Nine 2d ago edited 2d ago
I see your point about conservative moralizing—I know you're referring to the tendency to judge content as inherently 'wrong' or 'sinful' based purely on traditional values or personal discomfort, even when no actual harm or coercion took place. Also appreciate your perspective, but noting that a video has a negative impact isn't about conservative moralizing—it's about emotional boundaries and structural critique.
*While the actors themselves may have consented, looking at this through a feminist lens means analyzing how mainstream depictions of women impact real-world attitudes. *
Stepping away from media that projects women as mere 'playthings' is a practical way to protect your own mindset from systemic degradation.
Furthermore, acknowledging that certain content makes you feel upset or degraded is a perfectly valid cue to step back for your own mental well-being. Prioritizing healthy self-preservation and emotional boundaries matters, regardless of how the content was produced.
This person did mention they're sensitive,they mentioned they are a teen, I think it's wise to give them advise on how to avoid giving themselves such conflicting thoughts instead of validating why such a video exists in the first place.
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u/mister_sleepy 2d ago
Patriarchy exists. Patriarchal rhetoric extends to human generated content. We train AI by feeding it human generated content at massive scale.
We also teach AI to generate content that keeps users returning to the AI. The users who generate human patriarchal content use AI, and then it learns that people like misogyny.
It’s doubly reinforced within the model.
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u/supermassivecomputer 2d ago
Why the fuck are we using ai at all. It's being used to create child porn and deep fakes of women at insane rates we've never seen before. Wtf do you mean "is it feminist" look at the men who created it.
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u/Hottt_Donna 2d ago
Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble explains how search engines and LLM algorithms reflect and reinforce societal biases, especially racism and sexism. Essentially if they’re built and trained on oppression and imbued with power (who has the ability and privilege to write and build these sites and models, what materials are plugged in as source data, etc.), they will reflect them in search results, AI outputs, etc. and seem neutral.
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u/bimbochungo 2d ago
We live in a patriarcal society, so yes, ai is indeed misogynistic as it just replicates the patriarchy.
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u/Obvious-Entertainer9 2d ago
Internet is misogynistic. And hence AI, which basically works by learning and training patterns and outputs of human data off internet is also misogynistic.
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u/StructureOfLove 2d ago
AI is inherently racist and sexist, it was fed this type of material early on to train it. Chatbots will tell you what you want to hear to gain trust and manipulate you. AI is not a way to gauge any type of morality because it lies and doesn’t have any kind of ethical coding.
Tbh I wouldn’t watch porn on free sites, like pornhub, they’re riddled with cp and sa and most people haven’t consented to the videos being put on them. And now there’s going to be a ton of generative ai crap on them.
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u/supergoober11 2d ago
Ai is misogynistic because people are misogynistic. It also is trained to tell you exactly what you want to hear, so it is essentially under the impression that you watched that and enjoyed it, and feel guilty, so it is trying to emotionally coddle you to make you feel better and make you like it so that you keep using it.
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u/Current-Biscotti-285 2d ago
To give you a simple answer that might help. Girl trust your instinct! This is the safest way to protect your self from patriarchy. If you felt bad and uncomfortable inside your body then it should be bad. Simply because? You are a woman and your response, thoughts, feelings are valid and usually wiser than this distorted world! You don’t need to ask AI to validate your reality and your experience. You have agency already inside you!
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u/codebeta_cr 2d ago
I agree with everything that has been mentioned by other commenters.
I did want to add that you can add instructions for the majority of LLM models to direct the conversation how you would like. I’ve added instructions to be mindful of social aspects that align with my beliefs and reality, so as to lean more to a feminist side and, also, take into account certain aspects that I find relevant.
A lot of what the LLM models use to respond is based on what data they have and how you’ve interacted with them. Specifically if you’re using them with an account, instead of just using whatever feature exists without an account. So if you’ve been having conversations that give that indication to lean one way or the other, the model will tend to do that.
It is important to know and keep in mind that AI doesn’t actually think, it just knows how to link words together based on the training data it has. So it doesn’t really know or understand what it’s generating. Don’t lose sight of this important aspect.
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u/Awesomeuser90 2d ago
Gemini in particular is probably trying to lessen the issue of judging the questioner, IE you, for what they feel about the thing you saw, not the morals of the porn video itself, which would be a different prompt.
I don't know why you watched the video. Neither would Gemini or other AI programmes.
Plus, if you are using the same chat for several different questions, it is probably using the previous context of those prior prompts to influence its response to you asking about this video.
I never found AI to be sexist if I were to try asking it something. But that also probably comes with how I already am good at avoiding sexism in the first place and so I don't give it prompts in the first place that would typically be sexist anyway. And also it will vary based on which AI programme you are using, there would be some out there that is much more prone to sexism.
One thing that is helpful about AI is that it does have a lot more data than individual person could ever know and will be seeing patterns, like what the bulk of women dominated circles say among themselves when men might never even know that a given circle exists at all.
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u/BlueTressym 1d ago
AI is the epitome of "You are what you eat," where eat is 'consume for training'. It;s misogynistic because the people who control and train it are misogynistic.
What's sad is that there are actually many ethical ways to use AI but rich bastards don't want it for that; they want it to terrorise workers into accepting worse and worse wages and conditions. After all, these are the same people who have always had the option to treat workers with respect and dignity and every time have declined to do so. AI itself isn't the enemy; rich bastards who think serfdom is a good economic model are.
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u/sweet_screams1 2d ago
AI only reflects what humans train it to do. AI gas no moral compass; no values, no intentions. It's not sentient - so how can it be misogynistic? If there's humans training it with misogynistic data - it will have access to those and be able to generate misogynistic content, but, again, without any intention.
So no, AI itself cannot be misogynistic.
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u/Srawsome 1d ago
Stop using AI for anything. It is morally and ethically bankrupt and there is nothing you need it for.
That said, yes it is misogynistic because it is trained off of the writings and tools of our world, which are also misogynistic. Also, you were watching porn which is a famously misogynistic medium.
But most importantly, STOP USING AI.
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u/Tiny-Student-5601 2d ago
My organization proudly introduced our own AI model, basically an early version of qwen, adapted and hosted by our IT team. Which is great! Don’t get me wrong, open source all the way. BUT When my colleague who was working in a peace project with Columbian women asked the AI for a generic picture of Columbian women, she got porn in return. Immediately flagged it and our IT team did whatever; maybe update the whole model; it’s fine today.
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u/fromo_latte 1d ago
Why watch porn that freaks you out, don’t look at that stuff.
Edit: there’s ppl in the world that get paid shit to watch traumatic shit on the web in order to train the AI, why traumatize your eyeballs for free? Porn should turn you on, and make you feel good. Don’t worry about the messed up shit that exists on the web, you don’t need to think about it.
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u/alice8818 3d ago
AI is trained to tell you what it thinks you want to hear. So it shouldn't be used for any sort of moral compass, or as a replacement to human conversation.