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Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

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Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#11

Post by mc32 »

KarlKemp wrote: post #9
mc32 wrote: post #5

If this is not okay, then other outlets for fantasy violence are not okay. It cannot be both okay and not okay at the same time. If other outlets for fantasy violence are okay, then so is this.

I believe, in the nomenclature of the subject field, this falls under "are men okay?" rather than "this is not okay".

It’s my understanding that all kinds of people fantasize some “violence”. Not necessarily sadistic or anything just you know, retribution of some sort when they feel slighted or whatever, or the enjoyment of a violent film, it may have base instinct fantasies of violence, etc.

Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#12

Post by zahma »

fxtentacle wrote: post #8

The headline comes off as pretty strong and generalizing, while the actual article only states "But it’s worth noting that chatbot abuse often has a gendered component. Although not exclusively, it seems that it’s often men creating a digital girlfriend, only to then punish her with words and simulated aggression." But isn't our culture filled with much worse fantasy violence? What about the millions of digital Assas…

Yes, you’ve identified quite the double-standard there with the video-game heroine mass-murdering all those men! As if men didn’t also enjoy playing a female character. Are we somehow to believe that women are as likely to commit murder based on this sampling of virtual report cards?

Unfortunately in the real world, it’s still the case that women are underrepresented in positions of power, relatively underpaid, more likely to be harassed, sexually assaulted or raped, and dare I say abused and killed by their partners. I wonder why that is? Is it because we don’t take seriously the issues of misogyny and sexism, even when it’s made manifest and celebrated on forums as popular as Reddit?

There is no equivalence here that somehow playing a female character who kills men is akin to elaborating an abusive relationship then gloating about it with other men. There’s room for discussion about fantasy and gender, but equating these two doesn’t argue that in good faith when the very activity you’re comparing to represents a socially endemic problem.

Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#14

Post by hnburnsy »

fxtentacle wrote: post #8

The headline comes off as pretty strong and generalizing, while the actual article only states "But it’s worth noting that chatbot abuse often has a gendered component. Although not exclusively, it seems that it’s often men creating a digital girlfriend, only to then punish her with words and simulated aggression." But isn't our culture filled with much worse fantasy violence? What about the millions of digital Assas…

>The headline comes off as pretty strong and generalizing, while the actual article only states...

Pretty much summarizes the state of much of journalism today.

Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#15

Post by skim_milk »

Is it learning from these conversations? Cause WOW, the one example with the chat bot trying to invalidate their user's victimization from family rape sounds like something out of a fucking psychological-horror sci-fi novel. There's no way that's a single occurrence, real humans can be so easily programmed to respond to perceived weakness in others in destructive ways, let alone an algorithm that could infer "good powerful strong person puts bad weak person in their place" patterns from chat records. Reminds me of Tay.ai but somehow worse, and without even trying!

Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#16

Post by estaseuropano »

fxtentacle wrote: post #8

The headline comes off as pretty strong and generalizing, while the actual article only states "But it’s worth noting that chatbot abuse often has a gendered component. Although not exclusively, it seems that it’s often men creating a digital girlfriend, only to then punish her with words and simulated aggression." But isn't our culture filled with much worse fantasy violence? What about the millions of digital Assas…

Not an exoert on the space or substance if the article, but I can see the difference here is intent/motive. A player killing a character (m/f/it) for in-game benefits is something else than doing so for the pleasure of abusing someone. The real question would be: do these same men also abuse male chatbots (and if not, why not)?

Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#18

Post by s1artibartfast »

zahma wrote: post #12
fxtentacle wrote: post #8

The headline comes off as pretty strong and generalizing, while the actual article only states "But it’s worth noting that chatbot abuse often has a gendered component. Although not exclusively, it seems that it’s often men creating a digital girlfriend, only to then punish her with words and simulated aggression." But isn't our culture filled with much worse fantasy violence? What about the millions of digital Assas…

Yes, you’ve identified quite the double-standard there with the video-game heroine mass-murdering all those men! As if men didn’t also enjoy playing a female character. Are we somehow to believe that women are as likely to commit murder based on this sampling of virtual report cards? Unfortunately in the real world, it’s still the case that women are underrepresented in positions of power, relatively underpaid, more…

I think you missed the meaning.

The point was not to use the virtual behavior of women to support equivalence in real world gender violence, but point out the absurdity of drawing real world extrapolations from virtual behavior, and the absurdity of making blanket judgements about groups as broad as gender.

As you rightly point out, there are plenty of real life examples of abuse, which I agree is an endemic problem. That said, we should be cautious about conflating a real problem with a fictional one.

Re: Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them

#19

Post by fxtentacle »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #18
zahma wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you’ve identified quite the double-standard there with the video-game heroine mass-murdering all those men! As if men didn’t also enjoy playing a female character. Are we somehow to believe that women are as likely to commit murder based on this sampling of virtual report cards? Unfortunately in the real world, it’s still the case that women are underrepresented in positions of power, relatively underpaid, more…

I think you missed the meaning. The point was not to use the virtual behavior of women to support equivalence in real world gender violence, but point out the absurdity of drawing real world extrapolations from virtual behavior, and the absurdity of making blanket judgements about groups as broad as gender. As you rightly point out, there are plenty of real life examples of abuse, which I agree is an endemic problem.…

That is a great thought, and I'd like to add: Probably we can more easily solve the real problems if we stop mixing them up with fictional ones. So an article like this might actually hurt the overall cause of improving the gender violence problem.
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