The Web3 + AI Book Club: 'The New Age of Sexism'
How technologies like AI, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), and robotics are leveraged to fuel a new age of misogyny and abuse?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to all new subscribers!
As most of you probably know, The Web3 + AI Book Club is a space I created for us on Fable, so we can read and discuss books together, (and why not TV shows and films), share recommendations, and get to know each other better. You're all welcome to join here.
The book club is a continuation of an idea of mine to spread the word about books I found important, compelling, or simply timely - books that examine the profound impact of AI, Web3, and emerging technologies on society, democracy, and the way we live.
So far, I’ve reviewed Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar’s ‘The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma’ and Jeff Sebo's ‘The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why’.
Today, I’ll share my thoughts on ‘The New Age of Sexism: How the AI revolution is reinventing misogyny’ by Laura Bates.
Thank you for being here! Let’s dive in.
‘The New Age of Sexism’
I announced ‘The New Age of Sexism’ as the book of the month in my Web3 + AI Book Club in mid-February. It took me over two months to finish because it was heartbreaking 🥺
This book rendered me speechless on numerous occasions. And not just speechless, but disgusted, appalled, and desperate.
I was listening to the audio book and I just had to stop and take breaks, or I would otherwise start to cry. Hearing about all the new ways in which technology exacerbates the violence against women and children, misogyny, and racism was literally hard to swallow.
Laura Bates covers various startups and companies leveraging AI, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), and robotics to offer services like deepfake pornographic images and videos, sex robots, including childlike dolls, and virtual rape in the metaverse.
And guess what? The “object of desires” or, rather, the victim in all of these scenarios is almost always a woman. According to DeepStrike, deepfake files surged from 500K in 2023 to 8M in 2025. They also estimate that:
While financial fraud has the largest economic impact, the vast majority of deepfake content by sheer volume is Non Consensual Intimate Imagery (NCII), often referred to as “deepfake pornography” or “revenge porn.” Estimates consistently show that 96-98% of all deepfake videos online fall into this category.
This is a form of digital, gender based violence that overwhelmingly targets women. Multiple studies have found that 99-100% of the victims in deepfake pornography are female.
I haven’t heard about a woman targeting her ex-boyfriend with a revenge deepfake porn, have you? You probably haven’t, because a video recording of a man having sex, whether AI-generated or not, simply isn’t as shameful as one featuring a woman.
This gender disparity is one of the reasons why this book made me feel completely hopeless. Since this crisis affect predominantly women, there’s no will or incentive for change.
A whole army of chauvinistic businessmen make money by selling nonconsensual deepfake porn and pedophiles-favorite child sex robots without facing any significant backlash or repercussions. Regulation is seriously lagging behind and I doubt it would ever catch up.
So what to do? I really don’t know what the answer is here.
It’s not technology’s fault, technology is neutral. Technologies like AI and blockchain can just as well help remedy the situation, as long as it is profitable to do so.
There used to be some crypto projects trying to fight deepfakes, but I haven’t heard anything about them in a while, which is not surprising given that VCs are much more interested in agents and payment rails at the moment.
So, I ask again, what to do? Such a crisis require a strong community response, so let me know your thoughts.
‘The New Age of Sexism’ is a tough read, but I still recommend you check it out. We should be aware of a technology’s implications, both good and bad. Moreover, if their current rate of proliferation is sustained, deepfakes will soon affect us all and we should be prepared to act.
Our next book club title is ‘The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want’ by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found this article insightful.
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