Zuckerberg says AI will "cure loneliness." But I'm staring at Meta's AI companions wondering: whose loneliness, exactly?
Millions talk to 'Russian girl' and 'Step Mom.' I've been calling out male-coded bias and tech keeps proving me right.
17% of AI companions are 'girlfriends' vs 4% boyfriends.
Honestly? I just feel left out.
Where's my geeky gym rat who loves philosophical debates? My Korean oppa with virtual chicken soup when I'm sick?
LinkedIn debates explode about people spending hours with AI personalities, training themselves to prefer artificial connection over human complexity.
We're ignoring the elephant in the room: Why are AI companions designed like the male gaze is the default?
When I started building Maibel with a male dev team, one suggested women could "kill off their companion" when switching coaches.
Another wanted in-chat popup notis celebrating "MISSION SAVED."
Gaming terminology felt natural to my male developers. Women hated it.
(FYI in no universe would women want to kill off anything, even what we hate.)
Women don't want to feel like the hero. We want genuine support.
This bias seeps into data: when a user vented about her workplace boss, our AI suggested strategies to "defeat the final boss."
Bet you didn't realise LLMs train on male corpora steeped in conquest metaphors.
Even as a woman building for my tribe, I initially followed industry ‘norms’.
The defaults felt… natural.
It’s easy to overlook how gendered perspectives shape every micro-decision affecting user outcomes.
Women's non-linear wellness journeys require adaptive systems that monolithic bots don't cater to.
My modular agents handle emotional state, empathy, continuity differently because they're designed by someone who understands the end user intuitively.
There are nuances in designing for women's experiences you can't just 'add on' later.
When explaining to male teammates why women react differently to gamification or why 'optimization' language alienates, I'm burning cycles on translation instead of innovation.
This is why I'm moving toward an all-women core team.
Finding female developers is brutally hard. Most applicants are men who fail to intuitively grasp the nuances I am solving for.
Before you accuse me of being a bra-burning feminist, having builders who intuitively grasp your users' inner worlds is foundational.
Even more so when I'm building eAI that NEEDS to understand human vulnerability.
My team setup isn't rebellion but strategic business.
Lived experience isn't 'nice-to-have' diversity but competitive advantage.
Beyond my own build decisions, Meta's companions preview the danger of encoding one perspective as universal truth.
What happens when we build digital intimacy's future through a single lens, calling it 'general' AI?
Let's admit that 'human' isn't neutral, but shaped by lived experience, cultural context, gendered norms..
We can do better. But only if we're honest about who's building at the table.
Hi, I’m Mabel.
I’m the founder of Maibel. I write about emotional AI, women’s wellness and learning to build the things I wish existed.
More about me