Can Artificial Intelligence Improve Gender Equality? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Can Artificial Intelligence Improve Gender Equality? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Difang Huang (Chinese Academy of Sciences) 

Please note that this event will be online only. You may follow the seminar at the following link.

ABSTRACT:

Gender discrimination in education hinders women’s representation in various fields. How can we create a gender-neutral learning environment when teachers’ gender composition and mindset are slow to change? Recent development in artificial intelligence (AI) provides a way to achieve this goal as engineers can make AI trainers gender neutral and not take gender-related information as input. We use data from a natural experiment in which such AI trainers replace some human teachers for a male-dominated strategic board game to test the effectiveness of AI training. The introduction of AI improves teaching outcomes for boys and girls and reduces the preexisting gender gap. Survey responses indicate that AI’s information advantage, friendly appearance, and interactive features helped students to learn faster, and class recordings suggest that AI trainers’ nondiscriminatory emotional status can explain the improvement in gender equality. We demonstrate AI’s potential in improving learning outcomes and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in analogous settings. 

BIO:

Difang Huang is an Assistant Professor in Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and previously held an Assistant Professorship at University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on behavioral and experimental economics and finance, with a special interest on examining the human-algorithm connection through the application of economic and machine learning methodologies. He is making the world a better place by studying ways to promote diversity, equality, and inclusion and seeks to uncover actionable insights that can be applied to foster a more just and harmonious global society.