Does the gender pay gap extend to AI? Research finds female AI agents 'paid' less
Researchers found workers paid a female-presenting AI agent 10% less than an identical male counterpart in a virtual reality office study.
- A new University of Limerick study found that female-presenting AI agent Johanna was paid 10% less than male-presenting Johan for identical work, revealing that gender biases influence how humans interact with artificial intelligence.
- Researchers placed 189 Alan Place Participants in a virtual reality office to complete workplace tasks with four different AI assistants, including human-like agents Johan and Johanna powered by OpenAI's gpt-4-1106-preview model.
- Although participants claimed they would not treat male and female-presenting AI agents differently, "their behaviour told a different story," suggesting gender biases familiar from human workplaces are replicated in AI interactions.
- Assistant Professor Mary Hausfeld co-authored the study, which will be presented at the 14th Nordic Conference in Vaasa, Finland, under the title "Human-Like and Male? How AI Assistant Design Relates to Trust and Monetary Reward at Work in VR."
- As AI agents enter the mainstream, IT consulting firm Accelirate reports that nearly 79% of companies now use AI agents this year, with 40% of applications integrating them, underscoring the urgency of addressing gender bias in AI design.
23 Articles
23 Articles
Protothema
Research from the University of Limerick in Ireland shows that gender biases observed in the workplace may also be replicated in people's interactions with Artificial Intelligence.
The Independent
The Independent (US)Female AI agents ‘paid’ less than males, study finds
Gender pay gap extends to artificial intelligence agents as female bots paid 10 per cent less than male counterparts
Even in the virtual world of artificial intelligence, human biases appear to exist. A new study from the University of Limerick shows that employees are inclined to trust male-looking AI agents more and reward them better than their female counterparts, even though they perform exactly the same work.
A new study from the University of Limerick has found that people's gender biases also show up in their interactions with AI. The experiment involved 189 people working with four types of AI assistants. Two of them were human-looking: Johan, who appeared male, and Johanna, who appeared female. Both used the same technology and had the same skills. However, participants paid Johanna about 10% less for the same work that Johan did. The study shows…
A University of Limerick study examined people's preferences for using AI assistants. The researchers used four functionally identical AI models, differing in their degree of human resemblance and gender. The study examined human preferences for AI. Participants reviewed work—performing official tasks—with individual AI agents, providing ratings and awarding them monetary rewards. The experiment found that assistants with a more human-like appea…
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