Women hold some of the most consequential jobs in tech, but they're still not cult figures. Mira Murati was trying to speak. Giant piles of carved meat rested like sleeping babies on banquet tables draped in linens as red as a handmaid's robe. Bartenders served up a cocktail named Zero to One, a nod to the philosophy of Peter Thiel. It was a recent Saturday night in a converted church in San Francisco, and the Foundation for American Innovation, a center-right think tank, was hosting a black-tie affair to hype the new religion of AI. Murati, the founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, was talking about the history of revolutions to a crowd of more than 350 people. The Albanian-born executive had for several years kept a relatively low profile as a VP and then CTO of OpenAI before participating in an unsuccessful coup against Sam Altman and then launching her own $12 billion AI startup. Now, with chatter bouncing off the church walls, Murati's efforts to get her points across were about as successful as that coup: No one seemed to be listening. The woman interviewing Murati asked more than once for people to stop talking or take their conversations outside. I whispered to the friend sitting next to me that this was the second time in a week that I'd seen a woman getting drowned out. Both of us were there to actually hear what Murati had to say. I tried to restrain myself from what I said next, but I sensed my friend was holding back too. "Her hair is amazing, though," I hissed. "Oh my God, I know," she replied immediately. Soon after, President Donald Trump's top science adviser, Michael Kratsios, took the stage.

The social media platform, formerly Twitter, was so slow to react that one image racked up 47m views before it was taken down. It was largely Swift's fans who mobilised and mass-reported the images, and there was a sense of public anger, with even the White House calling it "alarming". X eventually removed the images and blocked searches to the pop star's name on Sunday evening. For women who have been victims of the creation and sharing of nonconsensual deepfake pornography, the events of the past week will have been a horrible reminder of their own abuse, even if they may also hope that the spotlight will force legislators into action. But because the pictures were removed, Swift's experience is far from the norm.

We went through a period in the games industry where I felt I was being shamed for doing story. It was like, all games should be Deus Ex, all games should be design-driven and systemic. Interactivity is what's unique about games, a powerful tool that can't be ignored, but I don't like limited ideas about what games "should" be. It annoys me because there are so many different people playing games who like them for completely different reasons. I learn a lot from my daughter.

Whether it was IBM boss Ginni Rometty, dashing onto the podium to anchor a panel on artificial intelligence, or a defiant Christine Lagarde, holding forth on the need to fight back against populism, high-powered women were everywhere at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos. Women reached a record share of attendees who scored prestigious white badges at the event. What echoed through the halls of the main Congress Centre and after-hours events, though, was the sobering truth that the tenuous gains women have made in the world economy are at risk for those further down the ladder. Especially when it comes to the jobs of the future. The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, the rise of automation and artificial intelligence, is projected to be far more destructive globally to jobs currently favored by women than to jobs favored by men, according to the WEF.