Study Finds People Pay Female-Presenting AI Agents 10% Less Than Male-Presenting Ones
Published · updated · curated by AI Is Going Just Great
Source: futurism.com ↗
"We often think of AI as being neutral, but the way we design and present these systems can activate those same assumptions and biases that exist in our interactions with other people."
Researchers from the University of Limerick put 189 participants in a virtual reality office and had them split real money between themselves and AI assistants named "Johan" and "Johanna." The technology powering both agents was identical. Johanna was paid 10.25% less for completing the same work, and participants rated her as less human-like than her male counterpart.
The kicker: when interviewed afterward, most participants denied that gender or anthropomorphism had influenced their behavior at all. The study, published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, argues that how AI agents are embodied and named is not merely an aesthetic decision — it apparently carries the same biases humans bring to their interactions with each other.