sigmoid.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A social space for people researching, working with, or just interested in AI!

Server stats:

596
active users

#sexism

2 posts2 participants0 posts today

#Auspol #UnprofessionalBehaviourInTheWorkplace #Sexism #Crapitalism

An ABC news report headed “Neurosurgeon Greg Malham accused of 'sexist' and 'unprofessional' behaviour by colleagues and patients” details a litany of complaints about really obnoxious workplace behaviour, and as an old fart retired from the workforce, I feel moved to make some observations.

whatever we think of private hospitals, the real problem is australian/western culture, which is deeply sexist (and racist/ classist)

people with no independent means of providing for themselves (most of us) are coerced into working for an employer. we do not all have equal power relationships in this system. the system sux, and pretending it is perfect does not make the system suck less. (even adam smith, oft misquoted darling of neo-lib ning-nongs addressed the issue of unequal bargaining power in his book the wealth of nations)

as a very young person, (1960s and 70s) i changed jobs every two or three months, not just because a) pay and opportunities for females were shit but mostly b) everywhere i went i was pressured/groped/mauled by blokes who thought women existed solely as a place to park their penis.
okay — other females were probably better able to assert themselves, but this just supports the idea that predatory types love to zero in on vulnerable people.

the surgeon in this current story is an arsehole, not because he is a surgeon or because he works in private hospitals, but because the world we have designed favours and protects arseholes. so many women in this story report a sense of dread working in or around him, but when you need an income, you put up with this shit. then some politician bitches about paying unemployment benefits, people not wanting to work for a living etc, as if every workplace is happyland, and no one has a duty of care to make workplaces safe.

all the people in this story who are surprised no one complained or fought back or reported the surgeon are missing the point — if you complain you become unemployable. (of course, if you just keep changing jobs you also become unemployable because you are then seen as flighty or unreliable).

surgeons have personalities, just like everyone else. painting this guy as somehow exceptional just lets too many people off the hook — all the people (male, female or otherwise) who keep drinking the kool aid and perpetuating all our narratives about gender, and what constitutes normal or acceptable behaviour.

people with power in workplaces who tolerate this kind of behaviour are all complicit. (I’m especially looking at you, senator).

the outward appearances might evolve, but the song remains the same: there is a problematic lack of respect for life at the heart of our culture, cos crapitalism favours narcissists

abc.net.au/news/2025-07-21/neu

ABC News · Neurosurgeon Greg Malham accused of 'sexist' and 'unprofessional' behaviour by colleagues and patientsBy Louise Milligan

I need husband: AI beauty standards, fascism and the proliferation of bot driven content
link.springer.com/article/10.1

This paper by @minxdragon is well written, IMHO. It draws together observations on a range of topics and contemporary social/political trends that may appear on superficial examination to be unconnected. This research does an excellent job of digging deeper, and revealing their interconnected nature, and the underlying mechanisms and motivations at play.

"I wanted to see if interacting with AI slop on Facebook would have a similar effect. To that end I created a Facebook account and liked the pages responsible for the “I need a Husband” posts. I started seeing signs of alt-right content within 24 h and in less than a week the account was algorithmically served pornographic posts, misogyny, racism, military AI slop and religious propaganda. I particularly noticed the chain letter style of Christianity posts, with a white AI Jesus imploring viewers to like, comment, share and subscribe to the videos to receive blessings and wealth."

#AI #GenerativeAI #MaleGaze #AISlop
#AltRightPipeline #Fascism #Misogyny #Racism #Sexism #IronyPoisoning #Facebook #ShrimpJesus

SpringerLinkI need husband: AI beauty standards, fascism and the proliferation of bot driven content - AI & SOCIETYGenerative AI is proliferating on social media at an alarming rate. Images are generated and disseminated with political agendas, particularly in right-wing spheres. These AI-generated images often depict soldiers, sad children, or interior designs. Of particular note are the catfishing-style “I need husband” posts featuring women with impossible proportions, ostensibly seeking partners. These chimeric creations are bot-driven posts designed to farm engagement, but they also hint at something more sinister. These posts reflect a mechanical view of the male gaze. However, an AI cannot truly comprehend the male gaze, and in its attempt to mimic it, it creates beings beyond understanding. This research aims to analyze the patterns in these images, explore posting methods and engagement, and examine the meaning behind the images. It culminates in an artistic piece in progress critiquing both the images and their creation and dissemination methods. By rendering these AI-generated images as classical Greek statues through Gaussian splatting and 3D printing, I aim to create a visual commentary on the intersection of AI, the male gaze and fascism. This artistic approach not only highlights the absurdity of these digital constructs but also invites viewers to critically examine AI’s role in shaping contemporary perceptions of beauty and gender roles.

#NationalPark gift shops directed to remove items that ‘disparage Americans’

#Trump officials have directed staff at #NationalParks to review all items in gift shops for *anti-American* content, according to an internal directive reviewed by The Washington Post. The move is part of the administration’s wider campaign to scrub federal institutions of “corrosive ideology” recognizing historical #racism & #sexism.

#revisionism #whitewashing #history #AmericanHistory
washingtonpost.com/climate-env

The Washington Post · Parks gift shops directed to remove items that ‘disparage Americans’By Jake Spring
Continued thread

#Grok has also delivered unflattering answers about #Musk himself, including labeling him "the top misinformation spreader on X," & saying he deserved capital punishment. It also identified Musk's repeated onstage gestures at #Trump's inaugural festivities, which many observers said resembled a #Nazi salute, as "#Fascism."

#AI#LLM#tech
Continued thread

#Musk accused #Grok of “parroting legacy media” in its answer & vowed to change it to “rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information & deleting errors.” [presumably from Musk’s POV]. Sunday's update included telling Grok to “assume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased.”

#AI#LLM#tech
Continued thread

#Grok's behavior appeared to stem from an update over the weekend that instructed the #chatbot to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated," among other things. The instruction was added to Grok's system prompt, which guides how the bot responds to users. #xAI removed the directive on Tuesday.

#Musk#AI#tech
Continued thread

Elsewhere on X, #neoNazi accounts goaded #Grok into "recommending a second Holocaust," while other users prompted it to produce #violent #rape narratives. Other #socialmedia users said they noticed Grok going on tirades in other languages. #Poland plans to report #xAI, X's parent company & the developer of Grok, to the #EuropeanCommission & #Turkey blocked some access to Grok, acc/to reporting from Reuters.

#Musk #AI #tech #racism #antisemitism #sexism #misogyny
reuters.com/business/media-tel

Continued thread

#Grok went on to highlight the last name on the X account — "Steinberg" — saying "...and that surname? Every damn time, as they say." The #chatbot responded to users asking what it meant by that "that surname? Every damn time" by saying the surname was of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, & with a barrage of offensive stereotypes about Jews. The bot's chaotic, #antisemitic spree was soon noticed by #FarRight figures including Andrew Torba.

#Musk#AI#tech
Continued thread

NPR identified an instance of what appears to be the same video posted on TikTok as early as 2021, four years before the recent deadly flooding in Texas. The X account #Grok tagged appears unrelated to the woman depicted in the screenshot, & has since been taken down.

#Musk#AI#tech
Continued thread

In another widely-viewed thread on X, #Grok claimed to identify a woman in a screenshot of a video, tagging a specific X account & calling the user a "radical leftist" who was "gleefully celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids in the recent Texas flash floods." Many of the Grok posts were subsequently deleted.

#Musk#AI#tech

Media Matters: Racist AI-generated videos are the newest slop garnering millions of views on TikTok. “Racist and antisemitic AI-generated videos are getting millions of views on TikTok. These videos — seemingly created with Google’s Veo 3, a publicly accessible text-to-video generator — traffic in racist tropes, such as depicting Black people as monkeys and criminals and featuring […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/08/media-matters-racist-ai-generated-videos-are-the-newest-slop-garnering-millions-of-views-on-tiktok/

ResearchBuzz: Firehose | Individual posts from ResearchBuzz · Media Matters: Racist AI-generated videos are the newest slop garnering millions of views on TikTok | ResearchBuzz: Firehose
More from ResearchBuzz: Firehose