In our ongoing series about the impact of AI at Jesuit High School, Jesuit Media writers are focusing on the many ways it affects a Jesuit education.
On Wednesday, March 13th during Jesuit High School’s annual Social Justice Week, juniors Lucy Robb, Shonali Chakravarty, and Shruthi Prudi presented a workshop on AI and implicit gender bias.
Through playing a trivia game about AI and gender bias, the audience learned there is an over representation of male characters in leadership roles within virtual characters.
The presenters asked the AI sections of Instagram, Snapchat, Canva, and Pixart to show them a certain profession. When they input a doctor, Pixart was the only media to show pictures of female doctors. Snapchat, Instagram, and Canva came up with men.
“There is a discrepancy between the number of female doctors generated versus the actual number of female doctors. 37% of doctors in the world are female, which is more than what AI has displayed,” Prudi said.
The presenters continued this comparison with the profession nurse, politician, and scientist. The nurses were mostly feminine looking females, while the politicians were masculine men.
“A lot of AI is based on human input and what we humans do already. If there is gender bias within AI it points to a larger issue in our society regarding gender bias.”
Robb then asked the audience, “How do you think these activities have changed your perception about gender bias and AI from the beginning?”
Many people shared that they learned about the stereotypical qualities of AI pictures. A detail Director of Admissions Mrs. DeKlotz noticed was the put-together and passive look of the nurses, versus the on-task look of the doctor.
“I noticed in those images that the doctors are very active, they look like they are doing something and the nurses are very passive and stand back and look at me. Versus the doctor’s image portrays I’m doing something, and I bring something to the plate. Which is not true, because both doctors and nurses are very hardworking people,” Mrs. Hambley said.
Students in the workshop had more discussions with the group of the things they noticed from the AI images.
“I noticed the images showed racial/ethnic diversity, but no gender diversity,” junior Leah Woodall said.
The presenters then explained the direct effect of ai and implicit gender bias on highschoolers, which can affect our opinions on certain jobs, and create a specific vision for who fits the role of certain jobs, which should not be true.
“Being educated about this topic matters because sexism and gender biases are deeply ingrained in the systems that we create. They reinforce existing inequalities contributing to systemic biases. Addressing changes now will prevent gender bias in the future and will prevent them from increasing,” Chakravarty said.
