Online surveys have found that women consistently perceive AI to be more risky than men. The main factors behind this view are women’s general higher risk aversion and greater exposure to AI-related risks. The paper was published in PNAS Nexus.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a broad term that refers to computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as pattern recognition, prediction, language understanding, and decision support. AI is being used by businesses to automate daily tasks, analyze large amounts of data, improve customer service, and support faster decision-making. For example, companies are increasingly using AI in chatbots, fraud detection, demand forecasting, recommendation systems, quality control, document processing, and more.
Key benefits of AI for businesses include increased efficiency, lower costs, faster processing, greater consistency, and the ability to extract useful insights from complex data. AI can also help companies become more competitive by improving products, responding to customers faster, and identifying opportunities earlier.
However, AI also comes with risks such as inaccurate output, biased decisions, privacy issues, security vulnerabilities, and over-reliance on automated recommendations. Another important risk is that employees and managers may place too much trust in AI, even when it confidently makes the wrong decision. Companies also face legal and reputational risks if AI is used in ways that are unfair, opaque, or harmful to customers or employees.
Study author Sophie Bowin and her colleagues point out that despite women rapidly overtaking men in post-secondary education, there is existing evidence that men are better placed than women to benefit from the broader use of AI. They believe this is because men dominate technology-oriented fields and professions. These authors conducted an online survey with the hypothesis that women perceive themselves to be at higher risk from AI than men. They believed this would happen because women are more risk-averse and more exposed to AI-related economic ostracism than men.
Study participants included 3,049 American and Canadian residents. Participants were recruited through YouGov’s opt-in panel. The survey included an assessment of individuals’ risk orientation, perception of the dangers of AI, and exposure to technological change. Risk appetite was assessed by asking participants whether they would prefer a guaranteed $1,000 win or a 50% chance of winning $2,000. The study authors considered education level and occupational field to be proxies for exposure to AI-related risks.
Participants also completed an experiment in which the study authors manipulated perceptions of AI risk by having participants read scenarios about companies implementing generative AI. The researchers varied the probability that the implementation would have a net positive impact on a company’s employees.
As expected, the results showed that women were more likely than men to perceive AI as a risk. The study authors concluded that the main drivers of this gap were women’s higher risk aversion and increased exposure to AI-related risks.
The results showed that women’s support for AI adoption declined more sharply than men’s as the probability that AI would have a net positive impact on employees decreased. Women also tended to express more uncertainty about the benefits of AI and more frequently expressed the view that AI offers little or no benefits in open-ended responses.
“Our study suggests that the adoption of AI may exacerbate existing gender inequalities if women remain more skeptical and less cooperative than men. These new patterns of differential adoption of AI technologies may create new forms of occupational segregation that persist, regardless of whether AI ultimately delivers the promised benefits or unintended consequences,” the study authors concluded.
This study contributes to scientific knowledge regarding attitudes towards the use of AI. However, it must be noted that AI technology is rapidly evolving, and with it, people’s attitudes towards AI are evolving rapidly as well. As AI develops further and the public gains experience with it, attitudes may change accordingly.
The paper, “Explaining women’s skepticism toward artificial intelligence: The role of risk orientation and risk exposure,” was authored by Sophie Bowin, Beatriz Magistro, R. Michael Alvarez, Bart Bonikowski, and Peter J. Loewen.
