In 2024, over one hundred million AI girlfriend apps were downloaded by users around the world. According to DCU professor Debbie GIng, this and other emerging technology should be \u201ca serious cause of concern\u201d. <\/p>\n
Speaking at a live event to mark International Women\u2019s Day – hosted by the Irish Times Women\u2019s Podcast – Ging described how these apps can alter men\u2019s attitudes towards women and girls in real life. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s this argument that it\u2019s about teaching boys how to develop relationships. But what they\u2019re doing is basically abusing them and testing how far they can go with verbal abuse and other kinds of things. They [AI girlfriends] never say no\u201d. <\/p>\n
The fact that AI girlfriends will tolerate all kinds of abuse, Ging explained, is a \u201ccoding decision\u201d, made in a tech industry that is mostly being \u201cbuilt by men\u201d. <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just AI relationship apps that the professor of digital media and gender says should be of concern. \u201cWomen\u2019s subjugation\u201d is being \u201cbaked in\u201d to much of the new technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven worse, something I found out about recently is another app, where you can talk to chatbots and roleplay violent and illegal acts. You can access brothels staffed by girls under fifteen years old.\u201d The tagline \u2018a world without feminism\u2019, she pointed out, is attached to one online brother.<\/p>\n
Also speaking on the panel alongside Ging, was international human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher, who spoke about the many ways technology is being used to abuse, harass and threaten some of the women she represents in her legal profession. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my clients had pornographic images generated of her, which were then sent to her son\u2019s school,\u201d she told the audience. \u201cThat\u2019s a message saying, \u2018I know where your son goes to school\u2019, and it\u2019s presenting something which is utterly demeaning of her and then it\u2019s impacting on her real life\u201d. <\/p>\n
Gallagher also described the work she does with a charity called Expat International, \u201cwhich is a brilliant organisation for children who\u2019ve been victims of abuse in places around the world\u201d. This abuse is streamed online and is \u201cdirected by western men, including Irish men\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what happens is you have a child in the Philippines or a child in Uganda, for example, and through the dark web, you have someone logging in and then directing what should be done to that child in real time and watching the images\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that example just shows us how\u2026 these difficulties are arising across borders and in new ways, and children and women are at risk in new ways, and our systems are creaking at the seams and struggling to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what can be done to keep women and girls safe in digital spaces? At the event, hosted by podcast presenter R\u00f3is\u00edn Ingle, the panel – which also included Orla Hanratty, a 5th year student from Clonmel, in Tipperary – spoke about the different solutions available to tackle the issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis sense of it all being too overwhelming is what the technology industry wants,\u201d said Ging, who remains hopeful that online platforms can be made safer for women. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey [the tech industry] want us to feel despair, confusion, polarisation and conflict. So we have to keep resisting that. We have to keep lobbying the government to regulate big tech\u201d. <\/p>\n
Following the discussion, Ingle was joined on stage by singer songwriter R\u00f3is\u00edn O, who performed her new single Magic. It was written as a tribute to her mother Mary Black and was released last Friday. <\/p>\n
You can listen back to the live show in full – recorded at Chapters Bookstore in Dublin – in the player above or search The Women\u2019s Podcast in your usual podcast app. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2024, over one hundred million AI girlfriend apps were downloaded by users around the world. According to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-335197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}