ChatGPT's "She" Needs: Gender Differences in AI Use

"ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, is currently attracting the attention of more than 180 million users. However, jewelry designer Harriet Kelsall said that this tool was not for her.

As a dyslexic person, she admits that using the tool may help her communicate more clearly with her online customers, but she has never trusted it much.

Ms. Kelso works in Nottingham, and when she tried to use ChatGPT, she found some bugs in it. She tried asking ChatGPT questions about the St. Edward's Crown worn by King Charles III at his coronation in May.

"I just wanted ChatGPT to provide information about this crown and see how it would respond," she said, "I know quite a bit about the jewels in the royal crown, but I noticed that there was a lot of information in the text that wasn't actually related to that crown." "

Ms. Kelso is also concerned that people may perceive what ChatGPT provides as their own independent thinking opinions and plagiarize.

Although ChatGPT has become very popular since its launch a year ago, reluctance to use it like Ms. Kelso seems to be more common among women than among men. According to research earlier this year, 54% of men use AI in their professional or personal lives, compared to just 35% of women.

This possible gender difference in the use of AI raises some concerns, but why?

Michelle Leivars, a business coach in London, said she doesn't use AI to create content for herself because she wants to preserve her voice and personality.

"The reason why clients meet me is because the text on my website is less like a standard template article and more like my real voice when I communicate with them," she says. People who know me well will feel my voice in it when they visit my website and immediately know that it is me. ”

Meanwhile, London's Hayley Bystram has no plans to use AI to save time. Ms. Bystram is the founder of the matchmaking agency "Boss-Lyon Partners". She personally matches her clients without the help of any automated algorithms.

"We could have used tools like ChatGPT instead of carefully crafted member profiles, which could have taken half a day," she said, "but for me, doing so would have taken a loss of personality and soul in the process, and it felt like cheating." Therefore, we still stick to the old cumbersome way. ”

Alexandra Coward, a business strategist at Paisley in Scotland, believes that using AI to generate content is like "over-retouching photos".

She is particularly concerned about people's growing inclination to use AI to make photos that make them look slimmer, younger and more stylish.

Ms. Coward added, "We're moving in the direction that your customers may not be able to recognize you in person, and you may not be able to recognize yourself. ”

While these are all legitimate reasons to stay away from AI, AI expert Jodie Cook says there are deeper, more entrenched reasons why women aren't embracing the technology as actively as men.

"Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields have traditionally been dominated by men," Ms. Cook said. She is the founder of Coachvox.ai, an app that allows business leaders to create AI clones of themselves.

"Currently, the trend towards the use of AI tools seems to reflect this disparity, as the skills required for AI are closely related to STEM disciplines. ”

The UK government announced an international declaration at the Global AI Security Summit in the UK to strengthen global AI security cooperation. The focus of the conference was on the most risky AI technologies for global collaborative management, i.e., the latest artificial intelligence whose capabilities are currently unknown.

Dignitaries, ministers and industry giants have expressed their views on AI and its management.

Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and social media "X" (formerly Twitter), said AI has the potential to threaten human survival.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that it is very important to regulate the risks of AI and cannot rely solely on the "self-assessment" of technology companies.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo said the U.S. will set up its own AI research institute after the summit.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said ahead of the meeting that global leaders must address the risks posed by AI "across the full spectrum," including algorithmic errors, deepfakes, and disinformation in the healthcare system.

China has also expressed support for global cooperation to tackle AI. Wu Zhaohui, China's vice minister of science and technology, called for "global cooperation to share knowledge and make AI technology available to the public".

While countries are just beginning to address the potential risks of AI, including privacy violations, hacking, and automation replacing human jobs, some experts believe that the threat posed by AI to humans may be exaggerated.

Nick Clegg, chairman of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said people should not panic at some unconfirmed predictions to ignore the most pressing threat to AI right now.

Observers believe that the most immediate threat to AI is that automation causes people to lose their jobs or strengthens an existing network of social biases.

Musk told the BBC that he did not expect the summit to make policy immediately: "There has to be insight before regulation can be implemented." ”

In the UK, where only 24 per cent of women are employed in STEM fields, "women may be less confident using AI tools," says Cook, "and while many tools don't require a high degree of technical ability, they may be more willing to try them if more women consider themselves good at technology." ”

"In addition, AI is still seen as science fiction at the moment, and science fiction is generally more skewed towards the male market. ”

Ms. Cook said she hopes to see more women using AI and participating in the AI space in the future, "We don't want to see the gender gap widen as the field grows." ”

However, psychologist Lee Chambers says that typical female thinking and behavior patterns may be what makes some women reluctant to embrace AI.

"It's about the confidence gap – women tend to demand a high level of competence before they can master a skill," he says, "while men often prefer to try to use a skill before they have mastered it." ”

Chambers also noted that women may be afraid that their abilities will be questioned if they use AI tools.

"Women are more likely to be blamed, so they may need to put more emphasis on their qualifications to demonstrate that they have expertise in a certain area," he said, "and people may think that if a woman uses AI, it means that she may not be competent enough." ”

"Women have been devalued, their ideas have been taken away by men as their own, so letting people know that you use AI can be a reason why you're not up to the task. It's just another demeaning of your skills, talents, and worth. ”

Perhaps, as Harriet Kelso put it, "I value authenticity and human creativity." ”