Study finds female-styled AI assistants earn less than male counterparts in virtual office
Researchers observed that participants paid a female-appearing AI assistant 10.25% less than an identical male-presenting one in a VR workplace experiment.
A University of Limerick-led experiment placed 189 participants in a virtual reality office where they completed tasks alongside human-like AI assistants presented with either male or female appearances. Using the same AI technology, the male-presenting agent, named Johan, was awarded more money and perceived as more human-like than the female-presenting agent, Johanna, who earned 10.25% less for identical work. Researchers, including Mary Hausfeld, Isabelle Cuber, Tarek Alakmeh, Anand van Zelderen, Moritz Jenny, Jochen Menges and Thomas Fritz, concluded that familiar workplace gender biases can reappear in AI interactions.
The participants reported no explicit preference for gendered agents, yet their monetary decisions revealed a disparity. Findings will be presented at the 14th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Vaasa, Finland, and published in ACM proceedings. The authors warn that design choices for AI could unintentionally perpetuate existing inequalities.
Why it matters
The research shows AI design can mirror human gender bias, affecting fairness in future workplaces.
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