Artificial intelligence may not collect a paycheck, but a new study suggests the people working with AI can still bring workplace bias into the equation.
According to The Independent, researchers from the University of Limerick, University of Zurich, and SKEMA Business School found that workers rewarded a female-presenting AI assistant less than a male-presenting assistant—even when both used the same underlying technology and completed the same work.
The study, titled Human-Like and Male? How AI Assistant Design Relates to Trust and Monetary Reward at Work in VR, involved 189 knowledge workers who completed tasks
alongside different AI assistants in a virtual reality office. Participants then divided real money between themselves and the AI assistant that helped them complete the work. The result: Johanna, the female-presenting AI agent, received 10.25% less than Johan, the male-presenting agent. Johan was also perceived as more human-like.Dr. Mary Hausfeld, a co-author of the study, said the technology itself did not explain the difference. “What is striking about our findings is that the technology behind these AI agents was exactly the same, but people did not treat them in the same way.”
Hausfeld said
organizations should be careful not to assume AI is inherently neutral. “We often think of AI as being neutral, but the way we design and present these systems can activate those same assumptions and biases that exist in our interactions with other people.”The study also found that although many participants said an AI assistant’s gender did not matter to them, their evaluations and monetary rewards indicated otherwise. Researchers found that more human-like assistants received greater trust and financial rewards than less human-like systems. That matters as AI agents move beyond simple chatbots and increasingly
operate as digital coworkers, assistants, and collaborators. The design choices companies make could influence how employees perceive an AI system’s contribution—and potentially how much value they assign to its work. Hausfeld cautioned that these choices should not be dismissed as mere aesthetics.“Such choices may affect how much people trust AI, how they judge its contribution, and even how they financially reward it.”
She also warned that organizations should consider the behavior their AI designs may encourage. “We don’t want to inadvertently reproduce existing inequalities in a new technological setting.”
The researchers published their findings in the Proceedings of the 14th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. The study does not establish that female-presenting AI systems will always be valued less, and the experiment was conducted in a controlled virtual environment. Still, the results offer a fresh data point for companies deciding how human—or how gendered—their AI workforce should become.
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