Ghazal Alagh Raises Red Flag on AI Misuse Against Women, Urges Industry to Use AI Thoughtfully

StartupTalky News

02 Mar 2026 — 3 min read

Ghazal Alagh Raises Red Flag on AI Misuse Against Women, Urges Industry to ‘Use AI Thoughtfully'

Ghazal Alagh, co-founder of Honasa Consumer, the parent company behind Mamaearth, TheDermaCo and Dr. Sheth’s, has sparked an important conversation around artificial intelligence and gender bias after sharing a strongly worded post on LinkedIn.

The entrepreneur and Shark Tank India investor highlighted how AI systems may be absorbing and repeating harmful social patterns instead of correcting them. Her remarks come at a time when AI adoption is accelerating across businesses, social platforms and everyday digital tools.

Opening her post, Alagh wrote:
“I came across research last week that I genuinely cannot stop thinking about.”

AI Gender Bias: Machines Learning Human Stereotypes

Alagh pointed to research showing how AI models associate gender with traditional roles.

“In the logic of AI, ‘man’ is to ‘programmer’ as ‘woman’ is to ‘homemaker.’ No one explicitly coded that bias into the system; the machines simply learned it from us.”

She explained that AI systems learn from large amounts of human-created data, including job listings, articles and online conversations.

“They mirrored our job postings, our articles, and our casual conversations and billions of our own blind spots fed into a black box until the algorithm started reflecting our worst habits back at us.”

Studies across the AI industry have similarly found that many automated systems show gender bias when analysing language, recommending jobs or generating content, raising questions about fairness as companies rely more heavily on automation.

AI Misuse and Rising Concerns Around Women’s Online Safety

Alagh also warned that the issue goes beyond bias and is increasingly linked to online safety risks.

“Bias in AI isn't always malicious. But sometimes it feels like AI is being weaponized against women's safety at a scale.”

She described how AI tools are being misused on social media platforms.

“On platforms like X, a woman posts a photo and the replies are filled with prompts for AI tools to undress her (see the links in comments). These tools then publicly generate explicit, non-consensual images of real women who are students, mothers, leaders.”

Globally, regulators and researchers have raised alarms over deepfake technology and AI-generated imagery, particularly where non-consensual content targets women. The rapid spread of such tools has pushed governments and tech companies to rethink safeguards and moderation policies.

AI Reflects Society; But Responsibility Still Matters

While critical of the risks, Alagh did not frame AI as inherently harmful. Instead, she described it as a reflection of existing social behaviour.

“We want to use AI. We must use AI, but thoughtfully. And the information it is sharing is just a mere unfortunate reflection of our society. A society where women have fought their way up as they have been historically been reduced, objectified, and pushed to the margins but now those patterns are being encoded into new systems.”

Her comments echo a wider industry debate: whether technology companies are moving quickly enough to address ethical risks while racing to build AI-powered products.

A Call for Responsible AI Before Products Launch

Alagh concluded her post with a direct challenge to the technology ecosystem.

“When a tool can be used to violate a woman's dignity in seconds, that's a design and policy failure. My question is: Can we build AI that doesn't inherit the worst of us? I think we can. But only if the people building it are asking that question out loud before the product ships.”

As businesses continue investing heavily in artificial intelligence, her remarks highlight a growing expectation that innovation must be paired with accountability.

For founders, developers and investors alike, the debate is shifting from whether AI should be built to how responsibly it should be designed from the start.