AI’s Gender Imbalance
It may not surprise you to learn that (gasp) men are much more open to the idea of AI and Robotics than women, but it will likely surprise you to learn just how much. In 2022, Register fielded a nationally representative study of 1560 adults in which we were able to quantify the gender* gap. In our study, the majority of men (60%) reported feeling excited about AI, whereas the majority of women (56%) said they were not.
What is more, this gender imbalance played out in every one of the 31 AI/Robotics sectors we studied. As you can see, from the mundane (AI/Robot Cleaner) to the mischievous (AI/Robot Friend) to the macabre (Cyborg/Human Merger), men were much more comfortable with all the AI/Robotics applications we surveyed.
Some of the biggest gender gaps in acceptance are pretty revealing: men are more likely to be comfortable with riding in an autonomous car, having sex with a robot (thank you, Westworld), uploading their brain online so it could live on after death (thank you, Terminator), and becoming a cyborg. From our study, it also seems men as a whole are way more optimistic about the future; we asked our respondents which would be better, living now or 100 years from now, and men and women feel very differently.
As a woman, the chart above deeply pains me as I am in the 2122 camp, and I am sad I will not live to see whether robots or humans win in the end. And, as much as it irks me to pour fuel on the fire, this male optimism is likely due to the fact that men are nearly twice as likely to be early adopters of technology than women.
From our research, we see that men are more likely to see the positives around AI, citing the unleashing of human potential that will come from more leisure time, whereas women are more likely to worry about technology, exacerbating the loss of human connection.
Generalities aside, there are, of course, many women who are positive (did I mention me?) and men who are not (Larry David?). Here are quotes for and against both men and women.
In favor:
“I’m excited for AI because of the potential to replace hard labor jobs and free up time to allow for more education, learning, and more fulfilling work.” (F)
“I see AI as an opportunity to improve decision-making and improving (sic) outcomes. I see the ability to use AI to do dangerous work that will save human lives, to help humans work smarter, not harder.” (F)
“The potential for humans to have more time to do things they want to do.
the things you can do will compound, automation of old jobs gives room for technological advancement and the birth of new jobs” (M)
“The potential for humans to have more time to do things they want to do.
the things you can do will compound, automation of old jobs gives room for technological advancement and the birth of new jobs.” (M)
Against:
“I don't trust machine ethics.” (M)
“I feel that if you were to roll back time ten years and take a strong look at the society around you, you would be able to see the 'disconnect' that people have from one another. This 'disconnect' is getting worse. And the introduction of more AI will deepen the void that exists in society. I believe that less technology and more verbal communication/collaboration is needed to try to infuse more empathy back into our cities and neighborhoods.” (M)
“The human connection cannot be duplicated.” (F)
“I think AI and robots will eventually be acceptable in areas where responses are unconditional; for example — house cleaning, driving, anything to do with mechanics, or repetitive tasks. However, I do not think robots can ever have the subtleties of intelligence to be therapists, childcare providers, or anything but rote teachers. (I am a human teacher.) Various rote learning tasks can be accomplished with computers and are already successful. But I do not see a future where AI will be able to look into a child's face and successfully deconstruct the anxiety seen there and respond appropriately.” (F)
It is clear that no matter their gender, people’s opinions are nuanced. And what is more, opinions are changing fast. Register’s 2022 study was a repeat of our original one done in 2019, which means we can document just how much comfort levels rose during the pandemic.
The category which saw by far the highest uptick in acceptance from 2019 to 2022, regardless of sex, was that of AI care:
You can see here how men’s openness to AI care skyrocketed. Perhaps the fact that many men spent the last three years at home, on Zoom with kids physically zooming around in the background, has made some re-evaluate the importance of care. Could the gender imbalance in AI lead to more equality elsewhere? Either that or Roomba should really be adding a few key features…
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*At Register, we believe in, recognize and support all genders. We know that ‘male’ and ‘female’ do not define us all. According to the first-ever national study done this year by Pew Research, there are currently 1.6M non-binary adults in the USA. This means that of the 209M adults measured in the latest US census, 0.77% are non-binary. That incidence rate means that those identifying as non-binary are likely just 12 respondents from our 1560-person study. Reporting on this would not be statistically sound or good research practice, and we, therefore, had to make the difficult decision to report only on two genders.