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Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.

The bizarre culture that’s sprung up around Silicon Valley AI companies - which overlaps hugely with rationalist and effective altruist circles - appears to be seriously pressuring some women into attending sex parties for the sake of networking. This is, needless to say, horrifying.

“What I personally find so frustrating is no one is ever given an ounce of grace for the understandable ways these conversations might blur. Whereas, men who act poorly are given a delusional amount of cover & protection. They say illogical things and get polite responses.” - on sexism in AI spaces.

More comments from people in the Silicon Valley AI space on how centering group sex events in the scene is hostile to women:

Yes, Slutcon is real. And while there’s nothing wrong with this kind of event in perfect isolation, in the context of “women in Silicon Valley tech are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend,” it becomes very gross. (BTW, Gretta is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s partner). slutcon.com

it’s also a shame in that I can truly see the value of teaching a workshop to men on “what do you do if you’ve been called a creep,” except that I somehow don’t think these are the right *people* to teach such a workshop in the slightest

Let’s also remember that this is the same group of organizers in the Silicon Valley AI scene who are also involved with throwing “consensual non-consent” events - IE, simulated rape. Which whistleblowers like Sonia Joseph have cited as creating a “coercive climate” for female AI researchers.

taco belle here is doing a good job of laying out the pretty obvious problems with weaving group sex parties, sometimes involving consensual non-consent, into AI industry culture:

Aimee Pepper is also making some great points on how “the culture of Al safety/Lighthaven is detrimentally linked to the culture of CNC (consensual non-consent) orgies.” Again: if you are a woman who wants to work on making AI safer, this is apparently the social world you must navigate.

This is *gross*. bsky.app/profile/leah...

"Oh those poor autistic men" is so fking gross and infantalizing i am on the spectrum I KNOW THAT IT'S WRONG.

People treat trans people as literally less able to function but for many its not, its a difference in how the brain is organized. We are fully developed we just did not develop the same way. I understand social ques, ethics, complex emotions.

I cannot emphasize enough how visible this was even 25 years ago as an undergraduate at MIT.

It was very obvious they focused on women from more sheltered or religious backgrounds as well.

These are the same weirdos who are trying to take over the process of regulating AI and setting US tech policy. little-flying-robots.ghost.io/why-we-cant-...

The effective altruism movement is extremely closely linked to rationalist social groups and high-level people at leading AI companies (the Venn diagram is almost a circle) - and it also has a sexual assault problem: bsky.app/profile/fain...

Let us also remember this social milieu revolving around AI apparently aren’t great at age verification for events, considering a 13 year old claims he was able to get into AI group house parties: bsky.app/profile/fain...

Ever notice how the demo video for every AI video generation tool is basically “make a beautiful woman do whatever you want?”

Those demos reveal more about what companies choose to showcase than what the models can do. A better benchmark would span ordinary scenes and show control over pacing, camera, and continuity.

Yeah, any of these men having a neurodivergence used as an excuse for abusive and illegal behavior isn't going to cut it. I feel really bad for these women, but at this point, it doesn't feel safe for these companies to be allowed to continue existing as they are.

As an autistic woman* it's really interesting when men fall back on "I can't help it, I'm autistic" as an excuse for SA and consent violations because as an autistic person all I've ever done is make myself smaller for a world that won't accommodate my disabilities.

Among other incidents there was a man who would send me fetish content and no matter how I told him I do not consent to it, he continued. When I blocked him I was approached in a cafe by another woman about being ableist for doing this as "he can't help it" and I was "deliberately isolating him"

Shit, my ex was a woman in tech in the Bay and coerced me into “C”NC scenes and parties. I put the first “C” in scare quotes because after therapy I realized I was raped by coercion :(

Ugh, I'm sorry.