The Double-Edged Sword: Women & AI

Part I of a Two-Part Series

As I mentioned in my previous substack, a few weeks ago I attended my first WebSummit in Lisbon, with the hopes of meeting like-minded founders and investors, which I did. However, the greatest gift in my experience there came completely out of the blue, aptly clad in a royal blue blazer.

At the end of a long day, I searched for a place to plug in my phone, so my kids could reach me during my long trek home from the convention center. I walked over to the Women in Tech meetup to find an outlet and heard two women laughing mellifluously, as they rose to leave. Having lived outside of the States for the past five years, I immediately livened up at what sounded like American accents. Living abroad, I’ve learned not to offend Canadians by confusing them with us, their crazy cousins to the south. So I asked to verify: “Are you American?”

“Yes, we’re American,” they answered quizzically. “Are you?”

“Yes!” I answered. For a second or two, we cautiously assessed each other for signs of friendliness, as our nation’s most contentious election yet had transpired just one week earlier. Once we’d ascertained mutual compatibility, we continued . . .

“What brings you here?” asked one of them, a tall stately woman in the aforementioned beautiful blue blazer.

I introduced myself with a quick elevator pitch: “I’m Lucia Brawley, co-founder of Take Back the Media, a ‘Media Fintech.’ We turn Culture into Currency by using high-quality content to onboard global audiences and creators to innovative financial solutions with partners like Mastercard.”

Then I asked naively, “What brings you all the way here to Lisbon from the States?”

When the tall woman in the blue blazer answered, “I’m Christian F. Nunes, the President of NOW,” I nearly fell off the stool on which I’d only just installed myself. As a former actress, I’ve met a number of shiny people, but as a former Obama organizer and political op-ed writer, I don’t think any of those Hollywood luminaries could possibly have rendered me as starstruck as the woman who runs the National Organization for Women, or NOW.

For those who may not know, NOW is one of America’s two foremost women's advocacy organizations, the other being Planned Parenthood, now under attack, as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision of 2022, which shifted women’s reproductive freedom from a Federal right to a State-conferred privilege (already causing a number of deaths among expectant mothers who needed urgent reproductive healthcare).

Ms. Nunes explained, “I’m here as a speaker, talking about how to protect women from the dangers of AI.”

“What are the main dangers of AI to women?” I asked.

“The main dangers are online sexual violence, where women’s likenesses are being used in pornographic deep fakes.”

Horrified at the concept, but inspired by her leadership, I told Ms. Nunes that I had recently started this Write to Raise substack and had just interviewed Women for Harris Co-Chair Lisa Gilford as my first live offering for my paid subscribers. I asked if Ms. Nunes herself would grant me an interview and to my great joy, she agreed on the spot!

So, I invite my paid subscribers to participate in the live Q&A next Wednesday, December 11, at 10am Eastern/ 7am Pacific / and 3pm GMT. Free subscribers may submit questions in advance. And, for everyone, I will post the recorded version of the interview.

As I prepare to seek Ms. Nunes’ much more expert insights than my own, here’s a quick overview of what I see as some of the major dangers and opportunities when it comes to Women & AI:

The Dangers: A Mirror of Societal Bias

AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on. Unfortunately, much of this data reflects the inherent prejudices, not only of historically patriarchal societies, but also of a male-dominated tech sector, creating the risk that AI will not only perpetuate but amplify gender inequality.

Bias in Algorithms

AI models often rely on historical datasets riddled with gender stereotypes. Take, for instance, Amazon’s now-scrapped recruiting tool, which favored male candidates for leadership roles because of historical hiring patterns. This isn’t an isolated case; such examples highlight the systemic risks of embedding bias into the very tools meant to drive innovation.

Reinforcing Stereotypes

From chatbots to image-generation tools, AI applications have sometimes defaulted to outdated stereotypes—for example, assuming nurses are women and engineers are men or portraying women as big-busted model types, when no such image request has been made. These small but pervasive reinforcements subtly shape societal perceptions over time.

Underrepresentation in AI Development

Women are severely underrepresented in AI and Tech, comprising only a fraction of researchers and engineers in the field. This lack of diversity in development teams contributes to blind spots, making it harder to recognize or address bias.

Disproportionate Job Displacement

AI-driven automation is set to disrupt industries like retail, administrative work, and customer service—fields where women are disproportionately represented. Without targeted retraining programs, this could exacerbate existing gender inequalities in the workforce.

Digital Gender-Based Violence

The darker side of AI also includes its role in enabling digital gender-based violence. Unregulated AI has fueled the rise of deepfakes, often used to harass and humiliate women. While legislative efforts like the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, which President Biden signed into law in 2022, aim to address these issues, they often fail to cover newer, AI-driven abuses.

The Opportunities: A Catalyst for Change

AI isn’t all risk—it also holds tremendous potential to empower women, bridge inequalities, and drive progress.

Bridging the Education Gap

AI-powered learning platforms can provide women and girls with access to high-quality education, even in remote or underserved areas. This is transformative in regions where traditional educational opportunities for women remain limited.

Empowering Female Entrepreneurs

AI tools that streamline market research, customer engagement, and financial forecasting can help women entrepreneurs overcome traditional barriers and scale their businesses efficiently. Without having to pay assistants, interns, researchers, copywriters — or doing all these jobs themselves — an AI-empowered generation of entrepreneurs can better focus their energies on growing their businesses.

Advocating for Equity

AI can be harnessed to analyze systemic inequalities, such as pay gaps or representation in leadership roles. By shining a spotlight on these disparities, data-driven insights can fuel advocacy and policy change.

Women-Led Innovation

Beijing-born Fei-Fei Li, the “Godmother of AI,” Eritrean Ethiopia-born computer scientist and ethicist, Timnit Gebru, among other women leaders in the space, underscore the importance of diverse perspectives in shaping ethical, inclusive AI. When women are part of the innovation process, they can drive solutions that better serve everyone.

Tip of the Day: It can be really hard to distinguish a deepfake from a real video or image. Some things to look for are Anatomical Implausibilities, Abnormal Stylistic Artifacts, Functional Implausibilities, Violations of Physics, and Sociocultural Implausibilities. Learn more in this MIT article. Test your AI radar in this Northwestern Kellogg School quiz. You can also learn about leading women in AI here.

Join the Conversation
How is AI impacting women in your industry or community? I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments below. Who knows? They could end up in my interview with Christian F. Nunes next week.