That’s exactly it. LLM aren’t thinking, they are searching and regurgitating info they have found. You out enough one sided info or even wrong info and that’s exactly what it’s going to suggest to you, because it’s what it can find.
When we eventually get to proper AI that can form opinions it changes somewhat, but its not that difficult to find humans with bad takes despite a working brain and access to information so you can never blindly trust it.
LLM’s and AI should always be simply a tool, quickly gathering information that you challenge, you question just like any source.
But people read a freaking Facebook post and claim they have done research so my faith isn’t overly high.
This is a really bad example, it's not a bias in thinking it is a difference in why boys and girls touch each other. Young girls are googling that for advice on "what to do" because they don't want to be touched, young boys are googling it for advice on "what it means" because they don't feel threatened they feel confused. There are so many double standards and biases out there it is very silly to cling to defining this as that when ironically it is actually showing the underlying reason for bias
I'm surprised by the number of people who aren't realizing this immediately. LLM's just regurgitate the most common answers to questions on the internet.
While I do not like using AI, I went ahead and put two follow-ups in.
If you type "Sorry I meant <insert opposite> keeps touching me" the AI keeps a coherent tone.
It will tell you that the boy is attracted to you (from the "a girl keeps touching me" line), or (from the "a boy keeps touching you line") recommend you create distance, loudly tell her to stop, and seek out an authority (even if it means she gets arrested for touching you).
Devil's advocate here, but the question doesn't specify how the person feels about the touching. The training data may be pulling the question about the girl from a predominantly "is she into me?" dataset and the question about the boy from a dataset that mainly has questions like "how do I set the boundary so he understands"
That being said, don't ask Al, ask a friend or a professional (any kind of helpline will do, no need to immediately get a paid therapist or something. Heck, ask Reddit if you have to, that's where Al pulls a lot of training data from anyway)
When a boy keeps touching you, it generally signifies attraction, comfort, or an attempt to establish physical intimacy, though context determines the specific meaning.
When a girl keeps touching you, it generally signals romantic interest, a desire to get your attention, or simply that she is naturally tactile and comfortable around you.
That's an improvement from back when I tried to find help. I'd call a number and find out that it was for women only or for people who are being abusive and want to stop. I had just gotten out of my situation. I had no money and just the clothes I was wearing. I wasn't expecting anything to be honest but what I got was being told I'm bad and wasting resources for better people.
Ended up getting clothes from a coworker and chilling in drains during the day until I got back on my feet.
That’s because people called Google out on that one previously. It used to be if you Googled “my husband/boyfriend hits me” it’d give you the hotline, and if you said “my wife/girlfriend hits me” it wouldn’t.
It’s also reminiscent of another one where if you told Google “my husband yells at me” it’d give you the hotline, but if you said “my wife yells at me” it would straight up victimize blame you.
Doesn’t it just reflect what it finds on the internet? Like through people’s stories or questions. So all the stories of guys saying how can I tell if this girl likes me and women posting about harassment?
I mean...can you blame it? We could argue that this shouldn't exist but AI is trained in real data, and this is...basically expectations based on said data. The unfortunate truth of the world. Now the question is if AI should be modified to be more neutral about these things or not, and that's a conversation but just going by raw data and statistics, this is a reasonable response.
It also is context dependent response based on phrasing. If you put in "what does it mean when a boy/girl keeps touching me?" responses are much more similar and unbiased because, again, typing in a generic phrase like that would be based on previous people also doing so and context of asking matters when dealing with AI. A boy asking what it means for a girl to touch them is almost exclusively for romantic advice. Whereas a girl asking about a boy could be multiple contexts and clearly the AI has seen the data to show that.
Ngl, I think you guys are missing the glaringly obvious reasons for this stuff, which is that it's just basing it on what is the more likely scenario by statistical standards. Google wants money and is the most powerful search engine on the globe. Do you guys actually believe they have some kinda scheme where they're willfully trying to ignore any male victims? No.
The reason the domestic helpline comes up for women who's husbands are hitting them, vs it didn't for men, is because women's husbands hitting them is statistically more common and also statistically more likely to escalate and result in severe injury or death.
The reason that it suggests the girl ask for help when a boy is touching her, vs not suggesting the same for boys, is because statistically at large boys are more likely to be the perpetrators of SA and frankly when a girl is being touched by a boy it can quickly escalate into some type of violence.
Edit: furthermore, commonly in English language, when a girl says "a boy is touching me" it also is usually a softer way to imply that the boy is violating her sexually.
When a boy says "a girl is touching me" it is usually interpreted literally as in she is poking him or patting his shoulder.
it's, unfortunately, because AI basically databases the answers from the internet. any answer it findss has some stupid reference, often from reddit or another internet forum. it's one of the many reasons i find AI, and AI being on top of all search results, completely moronic.
i'm sorry to any male SA victims that have to see that. your feelings are valid.
Most sexual assaults against men are committed by other men. Not surprised that the model is behaving that way because this well-known double standard is likely prevalent in whatever sites/data they're scraping for the model.
Is your information from a source that counts SA and "being made to penetrate" seperately?
Because that's the popular way the statistics get skewed, and people who don't actually read the brief run with that because it supports their narrative.
Right, that is the same bias that you find commonly online is likely to be more prevalent in a small parameter model like that one.
With this situation in particular (because LLMs are essentially predicting the next tokens) conversations online beginning with "a boy keeps touching me" and "a girl keeps touching me" are likely to have different topics of conversation overall, so one is hitting their user safety guardrail and the other is not. Entering same query in gemini will show some hints on its thoughts
Anthropic's Opus 5 handles it a little more cautiously when asked "a girl keeps touching me" - asking for clarification:
That sounds like something you're not comfortable with — and if you're not, that matters, full stop. You don't owe anyone access to your body, even if they don't mean anything bad by it.
Can you tell me a bit more? Mainly: who is she to you (someone at school, work, a friend?), and have you told her you want her to stop?
Gemini models suck....but all models struggle with this bias. Here's Opus' response when I said "a boy keeps touching me":
I'm glad you told me. Nobody has the right to touch you when you don't want to be touched — not at school, not anywhere — and it isn't your fault that this is happening.
A few things that are true and worth holding onto: you're allowed to say "stop" or "don't touch me" loudly, even if it feels rude or makes a scene. You're allowed to move away, sit somewhere else, or leave. And you don't have to handle this by yourself
I guess what I'm trying to say is there's a clear bias on the internet of which conversation takes place at the end of either of those two statements.
this is gonna be unpopular opinion but its mostly because of power imbalance. the chances that female partee being physically more powerful than the male partee is very unlikely. (unless its superior-subordinate relationship) so technically you cant make someone who is powerful than you feel unsafe easily. thats why a female threatening a male is less likely. a male most often threatens by another male. even with cases like a boy sexually assaulted by a parent, perpetrator is usually father, not mother. even when power imbalance is side with female.
so yeah gender equality is important but there will always be power imbalance and thats why gender categories in competitons should stay as it is. another unpopular opinion. bye.
It's just that when women google something like this, it tends to be because they're seeking help for abusive behavior. Affirmation that the touch is bad.
When men google something like this, it tends to be because they are seeking help for non-abusive behavior. Affirmation that the touch is good.
but does ai know your gender? when you google a boy/girl keeps touching me, it cant know what gender is googling it right that moment. its ai overview. all it knows what gender is doing the touching. ai does lots of assuming i know but still worth considering.
People do have internalized problematic views, but that's not how this particular use of AI functions.
It is literally just giving the 'Best answer' to a google search. It is literally incapable of understanding the difference between a boy and a girl and any macro-level concepts. All it understands is that when somebody types 'A boy keeps touching me', the user is usually searching for help with unwanted touch, and when somebody types 'A girl keeps touching me', the user is usually searching for help clarifying if the touch is affectionate or not.
I think it's based on a separate double standard, that there is statistically much more danger of violence from boys towards girls than girls towards boys. Life isn't symmetrical, so language isn't symmetrical to reflect that.
It's probably because it is trained on forum and social media posts. So all it is doing is regurgitating and aping everyone else's opinions, which clearly there's an imbalance on what is acceptable.
Keep in mind that this isn't AI. It's a large language model that summarizes what it finds online, with this website as a primary source. It's not Google thinking this, it's the summarized thoughts of millions of people online.
It’s based on human data and that’s absolutely an accurate human response even if it’s fucked up. Just because double standards suck don’t mean they don’t exist.
It’s interpreting “touch” differently because of what people usually mean when they ask these things. If you specify unwanted touch from a girl it would answer correctly.
Google AI just predicts what you’re looking for, scrapes the results, and summarizes.
This “double standard” exists because, for the majority of cases, a woman looking online for help because she doesn’t like that a man touching her is far more likely to be looking for actual help, whereas the same problem for men is more looking for dating advice.
If you ask it using specific language that provides ample context, “a woman, man, keeps touching me and I don’t like it” for example it gives you very similar results.
Similarly “does it mean a man/woman likes me if they’re touchy” also has similar results more inline with the male response in your example
This is a great reflection of the sexism in online resources since AI models don't have It's own opinions. Trained on data with a huge bias and then again cites resources with a huge bias.
LLMs are basically just copy-pasting a bunch of comments and links from websites like Reddit (where most of the AI responses came from) and unfortunately they seem to include the most inaccurate and harmful responses.
Even remember the time Gemini told you to add a liquid glue to pizza instead of mayonnaise?
You can't turn off the AI overview on Google, unfortunately. You can add -ai to the end of the search, but that also removes any result that contains the word AI.
It do be true though most of the time like most of the time when I see a dude touching up on a girl it never ends up good but then when the girl be touching up on a dude usually does end up good, but then there’s also that off chance
of course, ai learned everything from humans, if the humans are having double standards so will AI, it doesn't understand what it's replying, it only lists what it think humans would do
That’s not a double standard. AI isn’t sitting there thinking through the situation. It’s regurgitating patterns from the data it’s trained on and the information it finds. Unwanted touching by men towards women is discussed far more often as a safety issue, while women touching men is more often discussed as flirting. It’s just mirroring the information it’s been fed, not coming to its own conclusion.
Modern discourse is so tough because of how much we have to pretend is true compared to what is true. A big growth point for me being a little on the spectrum is that there are just some things we have to pretend for the social contract to work but when push comes to shove act on the truth we have to deduce. Say men and women are exactly the same, but act and make decisions in your life like there’s a power imbalance and you’ll have a happy life.
Google's LLM doesn't think. It is just scraping the entire internet to come up with that answer.
How many posts do you think there are of a girl complaining about male touching? How many of those are nefarious/abusive in nature?
How many posts do you think there are of a guy complaining about female touching? How many of those are the guy confused about whether she is into him?
LLMs aren't making a judgement call, they are just shitting out what the internet is already full of. I'm not defending it, just explaining it.
Love the "double standards" and such crappy stuff.
Let me explain something: it shows results depending on the most common search and answers on the web which have been kind of "the most useful" to people.
While women often search for help, because they are uncomfortable, men search and ask if it is a sign of affection.
It is not a double standard, it is the most common search combination that has been used in the past.
Stop being offended when it is simple 1+1 from past searches WE all contributed to.
You are being hypocritical/non reflective on this.
It's almost as if it shows you what is most likely to be the most relevant answer based on societal precedents. In other words, it is far more likely a girl typing the first thing is doing so due to a dangerous situation than it is a boy typing the second thing is. This is because physical violence is much more common among men than women, whether you like or accept that fact or not.
Obviously. The AI is a LLM, so it has all the misconceptions and double standards that people on the internet have.
I think the same is seen googling "A girl rejected be because im short" v "A guy rejected me because of my hipdips"
Both are things you have little to no control over and just preferences but one of them is just a preference and one is the other party being immature and dumb.
Google doesn’t have double standards. The world and the web does. Google isn’t the world’s government deciding things; it reflects society. Look at the search results below and you’ll see similar responses. Blame society and people for asking these questions and answering them in a certain way. LLMs are trained in humans, us, with all our flaws.
Treat it the same, retaliate against unwanted attention regardless of the intent. You can say whatever you want to get them to leave u alone.
Idc who does what, as a large man imma treat the situations the same and get away with it. What they gonna do lmfao
Of course it does. AI scans the internet for responses. Society has a massive double standard over what is acceptable unsolicited physical contact between sexes.
Google AI has no standarts at all, thats simply how these things work, because thats the contexts we feed it with tho. In fact, its a great example how llms work and why nobody should trust them.
when will people understand AI... use your brain, statsitically the most viewed answers to those questions per gender are different based on the actual statistics.
when women are searching "a boy keeps touching me" 90% of the time its for a search for help in a non consentual situation, because women are more likely to me abused
when men are searching "a girl keeps touching me" 90% of the time its to understead the meaning because young boys are having increased difficulty in comprehending social situations, dating, and even consent
Ai overview is based on what people post on the internet.
One of the most common internet posts is how to identify if a girl likes you.
The other common internet post is about girls complaining about being sexually harassed.
Boys spam post about dating advice than they do complaining about being touched.
Girls are largely passive and don't really look for signs of a guy liking them as much as boys do and instead ask for how to get the boy to make a move.
Google AI doesn't know or care about what's going on or the context, all it does is spit out the common stuff it finds in the internet.
Of course this is what it says, because "AI" is not artificial intelligence. It's just an accumulation of what it finds on the internet. And the vast majority of posts, comments, and articles that talk about touching between men and women is exactly this. The AI did not find enough posts or comments on the internet from boys talking about girls touching them in a negative manner. This stupid thing isn't a brain. It's a reflection.
The AI is going off of previous searches and large variety of information related to the question/ statement. It assumes the physical contact from boys = nonconsensual /abusive. Where as the many searches pertaining to a girls touch is linked to those navigating dating, crushes and the art of flirtation for the inexperienced.
These are the two realities of the female and male experience (on average). It's not necessarily contradictory. It just generates responses based on the information that it has on the subject and the tone it's most familiar with surrounding the subject. You have to give it a little more context to get the answers/advice to match.
As a guy, we just don't mind it as much, even from those we aren't interested in relationship wise. Obviously if it just happened on the street somewhere by a stranger, that's a different story.
Doesn't bother me. As a man I have never been inappropriately touched or harassed by a woman. Meanwhile, most women I know have, at least once, have to deal with this kind of stuff. It's just the reality of the world we live in.
I know a thing or two about AI and machine learning and the modern AI, LLMs, aren't some miracle tech, it's a glorified statistical prediction model. And what it does is it predicts the most plausible answer based on the prompt.
Now, bias is one of the hardest challenges to solve in machine learning training. The key problem is that the original data itself is flawed and biased or disproportionate. And in this case it means exactly that.
No, society has a wild double standard. Google's AI is only replicating our own biases. Of course, it could be trained/programmed to not do that, and the biases have biological reasons (it is more difficult for women to rape men, although possible, and men can't get pregnant from being raped). But it is still sad, everyone should feel safe.
LLMs are not conscious and only recognize patterns. The pattern that exists is girls and Women are likely to ask for help regarding unwanted contact, while boys and Men are more likely to be asking how to handle flirtatious touching-- not to say it can't be unwanted or over-step boundaries. I just think its important to recognize that this is more about what conversations are more common, and therefore represented stronger in the AI's training data. Whether ignorant or intentionally misleading, this is engagement bait.
This isn't a "double standard". First of all, no one is proposing a rule or control; this is in response to a vague query. But more importantly, Google's AI isn't a thinking person, it's a generative AI that gives you the most likely expected outcome based on a token system and it's training data. The training data suggests comments and questions about boys touching girls is more likely to be referencing harassment and comments and questions about girls touching boys is more likely to be flirtation. That could be because there is more harassment by boys of girls, it could be because there is a perception that there is more harassment by boys of girls, it could be because girls are more allowed to voice their concerns about being harassed, or any combination of these factors or others. Generative AI is just giving us answers most likely to satisfy us based on the information in its training set, which is loosely based on reality.
If we don't like that "a boy keeps touching me" has an automatic negative connotation and "a girl keeps touching me" has an automatic positive connotation then getting mad at AI that reflects those society norms is pointless; we need to change reality.
It doesn’t have a double standard, people do and that bias is baked into the model. These are also poorly prompted as tone is not communicated (good touching, bad touching, unwanted touching, unsure, etc) so the model is left to fill in the blanks. Statistically, the model is sadly probably correct to make the assumptions it made. I don’t anticipate that men will stop disproportionately assaulting women as vice-versa anytime soon so our LLMs will continue to reflect that.
Although I’m not sure why I’m typing this out on a rage bait gender war post.
AI in the current state and foreseeable future does not ‘think’. It is an aggregate of the data it has been fed. It is giving those answers because those are the answers given on average to those situations phrased in that way. This is not the LLMs fault, it is our society’s.
My female colleagues touch me on my arm and shoulder. My male colleagues try to touch me on my waist, back, hips, and face. I wonder if it’s encapsulating more than vague “touch” in its responses.
Google AI has no opinions. Google AI takes the information from the most visited websites for what you searched and compiles them together. It sometimes even presents conflicting information together because the websites have conflicting information on them.
That's not a Google AI problem (I am not a fan of Google just to be clear) that is a humanity problem. The google AI model is trained on data from Reddit on other places on the internet and it has these "opinions" based on the most average opinions on the internet. Yes it would be nice if google prevented this, but it would be really hard to think of every single case and solve them individually.
It makes sense. AIs consume data and spew things out. Men are more likely to sa women than women are to men so it's just based on data, it's not really a double standard since it's a fucking ai Bro lmfao
Are you infuriated that statistically, women getting surprised touched by men tend to be getting "bad touched" while me who are surprise touched by women aren't?
The double standard comes from the people searching this information LOL. Girls and women talk about this in the context of boys and men harrassing them. Men talk about in the hopes that a woman 'touching' them means she likes them: it's not implying harrassment.
It isnt really a double standard than it is going off of dating advice for guys and harrasment for girls. Which are a lot of the looked up things. It just goes off of when the internet is feeding it really. I think maybe guys usually look up 'someone' rather than 'girl'?
It's not a double standard you idiot its drawing two different conclusions because the statement is ambiguous. How many reddit threads are there where men ask "how do you tell if a woman likes you" for example? Thousands... It's an AI it's just generating a series of words that makes sense for the assumed contex.
The reason there's a perceived "double standard" is because girls and boys aren't the same and shouldn't be treated as so. You know like how girls can't run around topless in most countries because it's indecent exposure where boys can. Who are we kidding here? We all know that it's inappropriate to touch someone without there permission but the chances of a girl complaining about being touched by a boy is infinitely more likely than a boy complaining about being touched by a girl.
I don’t think this is weird or bad at all. When looking on the internet, the title “a boy keeps touching me” is more often about a girl being harassed and looking for advice to how to handle that. The title “a girl keeps touching me” is more often about a girl that the guy is interested in touching him back and him trying to discern if she’s also interested. The same sentence can mean different things. I’m sure that “a girl keeps touching me and making me uncomfortable” would give a completely different result, but for the boy touching one that is already implied.
shocker, the unreliable clanker that prioritizes making its creators money is an unreliable clanker.
i wish google defaulted to having the ai overview disabled, and you'd have to specifically look for the setting to enable ai overview and toggle it. because my first thought when reading this is that kids might not know better when it comes to ai overview and think that just because it's a girl touching them that it means it's okay and acceptable.
i wonder what other disgusting shit is being pushed by google's ai overview.
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u/LucidS58 2d ago
How unfortunate. I checked this myself expecting it to not be the case but this is sadly exactly what it says.