{"id":221146,"date":"2026-03-08T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/how-evolving-technology-is-putting-women-at-risk-the-irish-times\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T01:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:15:10","slug":"how-evolving-technology-is-putting-women-at-risk-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/how-evolving-technology-is-putting-women-at-risk-the-irish-times\/","title":{"rendered":"How evolving technology is putting women at risk \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

How evolving technology is putting women at risk \u2013 The Irish Times<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/podcasts\/the-womens-podcast\/ai-girlfriends-are-a-serious-cause-for-concern-how-evolving-technology-is-putting-women-at-risk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-08 01:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.irishtimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How evolving technology is putting women at risk \u2013 The Irish Times https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/podcasts\/the-womens-podcast\/ai-girlfriends-are-a-serious-cause-for-concern-how-evolving-technology-is-putting-women-at-risk\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/resizer\/v2\/57T3UL5V7RGF3DZS6VVPQIMHWA.jpg?smart=true&auth=0b29bf33601ec6409cb76ab41b987cb1d85aa5a62e67b4af7ea04ee609f873e9&width=1200&height=630","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-221146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-emerging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221148,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221146\/revisions\/221148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}