“The only lasting truth is Change.” – Octavia Butler
It is no secret that new tech innovations are impacting society on many levels. However, the current state of technology, mostly led by developments in the field of artificial intelligence, is demonstrating something bigger – a faster and more foundational alteration of how we human beings identify ourselves in the current tech ecosystem.
We are increasingly encouraged to trust what the machine says: an algorithm’s recommendation, an AI-generated answer, a metric, a rating or a prediction. Take the example of chatbots turning into our therapists, or friends, or making decisions for us about which response is the “correct” response. In the process, our own experiences, instincts and lived knowledge can begin to feel less legitimate.
This matters especially for women and marginalised people, whose experiences have historically been dismissed in favour of supposedly objective systems. This blog tries to name some of those shifts that are a result of this rapid “progression”, and analyses them through a feminist understanding of tech.
It is categorising us as definite
The new technologies categorise us as data points. And data is not fiction – it becomes a fact, and by definition, a fact is an absolute truth, which clearly goes against humanity’s evolution. When tech structures are designed to give definite values to human nature, needs and wants, it starts making decisions from that particular identity assigned by the makers of tech.
Feminist thinking reminds us that people, especially those pushed to the margins, have always had to resist the identities and roles assigned to them.
Encourages homogenisation over individuality
Platforms are designed to learn what works and then reproduce it at scale. The result is a digital culture where the same aesthetics, opinions, formats, bodies and behaviours are rewarded again and again.
Feminism has long challenged the idea that there is one “right” way to look, speak, desire, work or live.
Simplifying reality
Human experiences, history and contexts are messy. We can hold contradictory feelings, change our minds, sit with uncertainty, and understand something differently depending on where we stand. But platforms and AI systems often turn this complexity into categories, labels, scores and binaries because those are easier to process. And in doing so, it systemically erases qualitative information about people.
Feminists have been fighting this battle for a long time – the importance and need to hold multiple experiences together and with the same dignity as that of a dominant group.
Removal of friction as a feature, not a bug
We are constantly promised a frictionless life: one-click purchases, instant answers, automated decisions, sycophanticchatbots, agents, mute sex robots and personalised everything. But friction is necessary – it makes us pause, negotiate, listen, reconsider, and encounter people and ideas different from ourselves, especially with gender-diverse folks.
Feminist politics has always recognised that meaningful change is rarely convenient; it requires discomfort, disagreement and collective negotiation.
Cognitive shedding and surrender
Think about how you stopped remembering phone numbers, because your phone could save them. That was cognitive offloading. Outsourcing our thinking to certain tools. While offloading certain tasks can help us expand, the current AI trends are pushing it further with cognitive shedding and surrender.
We are increasingly trusting the machine’s answers over our lived experiences without scrutinising and questioning them. At scale, this is resulting in a homogenisation of thoughts and behavioural patterns, limiting the understanding of the world.
Now, consider the fact that these technologies are built by patriarchal, capitalist systems – systems that are inherently anti-feminist. When we outsource our thinking to systems created by oppressive power structures, we risk a slow and steady flattening, misrepresentation, and eventually, an erasure of the experiences of women and queer communities.
Vaishali Soni is an illustrator and visual designer with a background in English literature and journalism. After over six years as a design specialist at Point of View, she now consults with the organisation as an independent social media strategist. Her work brings together visual storytelling, research and participatory art for advocacy, exploring digital rights, gender, sexuality and decolonial approaches to AI. She is currently exploring AI’s impact on intimacy through AI, Bots aur Pyaar (AI, Bots and Love). Using one visual concept at a time, the project opens up conversations about how AI is shaping our capacity to love, care and connect with one another.