FACTOR is pleased to announce the upcoming talk by Megan Dewar (FACTOR, LAEL):

TITLE

AI and Misogyny: Unequal, Unregulated, and Unbridled

ABSTRACT

The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI states that: ‘AI actors should make all reasonable efforts to minimize and avoid reinforcing or perpetuating discriminatory or biased applications and outcomes throughout the life cycle of the AI system to ensure fairness of such systems’. Whilst sound in theory, there are some major issues with this statement in practice. Firstly, humans are biased, and therefore the data that AI is trained on is also biased; its outputs carry sexist undertones even when the user themselves did not set out to create content that is so. Secondly, policymakers are woefully unprepared to deal with the sheer volume and complexity of the AI content that is currently being disseminated. Finally, some AI users approach AI tools with explicit intent to create sexualised, violent, or criminal content. These issues can be considered as ‘passive’ (e.g., sexist training data, lack of moderation) or ‘active’ (e.g., content creation). The former facilitate the latter, and the latter are indicative of the attitudes of the most extreme in the current landscape of gender-based discrimination as a whole. This project is a very brief consideration of some of the recurring ideas surrounding AI and anti-gender content, where rhetorics of Andrew Tate are being parroted in the playground, LGBTQ+ people are labelled as harmful or hypersexual, and the male loneliness epidemic pushes more and more young boys towards AI girlfriends over true human connection.

TIME & PLACE

W17, 1400-1450, Thu 26th Feb 2026

In-person: County South B89

Online: Teams

Find information on how to get to campus here, and how to navigate campus buildings here.