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usonian

(27,295 posts)
Mon Jun 29, 2026, 07:04 PM Monday

There's a Reason Women Aren't Swooning Over AI Like Men Are --- Or rather, a great many reasons

https://thenoosphere.substack.com/p/theres-a-reason-women-arent-swooning
Way too much to summarize here.
Please read.





According to a recent Harvard Business School meta-analysis of 18 studies, women have 22% lower odds of using generative AI websites and apps than men, both at work and in everyday life. And this pattern holds across countries, sectors, occupations, and tools. Between 2022 and 2024, women accounted for roughly 42% of global users of ChatGPT and Perplexity websites, and just 31% of Anthropic’s. On smartphones, the gap widens even further: only 27% of ChatGPT app downloads come from women.

The oft-proposed explanation is that women understand this new technology less, largely because they work in roles with lower exposure to it. Women are, after all, still outnumbered in STEM degrees and careers, including in AI-specific roles. The same is true in AI leadership — women hold fewer than 14% of senior executive positions in the industry. But Harvard’s study also found that the usage gap remains even when women are explicitly given opportunities to learn and use AI tools.

The gap’s root causes just aren’t as simple as women being ‘less into technology’ or lacking exposure or training.

snip

When it comes to AI, women’s approach seems no different. Women report more negative attitudes toward AI than men do, mostly because they anticipate that its harms might eclipse the benefits. Concerns about transparency, safety, data privacy, fairness, inclusivity, sustainability, and collective well-being all weigh more heavily on women’s minds, including those working in tech. Unsurprisingly, it was two Black women, Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru, who first sounded the alarm about racial and gender bias in AI facial analysis software..


And the fact that the LLM databases reflect societal biases, (mentioned in the article)

Men? NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG. (I'm a male)
I make a short diversion here.
https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-men-safety-fails/
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
Bored Panda:
20 Reasons Why Women Live Longer Than Men (illustrated)

Returning to the topic:
Harvard Business School.
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=66548
Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI Over Time
By: Katelyn Cranney, Solène Delecourt and Rembrand Koning

Abstract
Generative AI has the potential to transform productivity and reduce inequality, but only if adopted broadly. In this paper, we synthesize evidence from 76 sources from over 100 countries and analyze web traffic data to show that gender gaps in generative AI use are nearly universal and persistent. Focusing on the 318,924 respondents from sources that report usage rates for both men and women, we estimate an AI adoption rate of 47.8% for men versus 39.3% for women, a relative gap of 22%. While this relative gap has shrunk over time, it has stabilized at roughly 16% since early 2025. These patterns hold in global web traffic data on the ten most visited AI tools. This data also reveals that women generally spend less time using AI and that the gaps are largest for frontier tools. Our findings are consistent with a view that as AI diffuses, the gap shrinks as women are exposed to and gain familiarity with AI, but that institutional, organizational, and social frictions will likely lead to persistent gaps in who uses AI.

PDF download:
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/download.aspx?name=25-023.pdf

My opinion?
As someone who has survived nearby lightning, military service, Boston and Bay Area driving, playing all my life with electricity, poison ivy AND poison oak (both coasts), Richard Nixon, Two Bushes, Ronald "They shot my brains out and nobody could tell the difference" Reagan, Gerald "I played without a football helmet" Ford and two shitloads of Trump (so far) I can say that
"You don't play chicken with rattlesnakes, nor do you ever win with condo salespersons, except by walking away" usually backward except for the couple who were taking selfies at Taft Point in Yosemite, who walked backwards at the worst possible place to do so.



In my book, "AI" stands for Alien Indigestion.


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haele

(15,736 posts)
2. A lot of infatuation with AI is based on the ego-boo flattery...
Mon Jun 29, 2026, 09:13 PM
Monday

I suspect a program telling you you're so smart and agreeing with your every word is very important to those who don't have the self-awareness or self-confidence to deal objectively with a story that's just too good to be true.
The business world and C-suites are littered with people who bought into the Prosperity Gospel/"the Secret" pop theories where success is "visualized", and reality is there to be altered in real time to anything they want it to be.

bamagal62

(4,681 posts)
3. Women have more common sense, in MHO.
Mon Jun 29, 2026, 10:01 PM
Monday

We also, I believe, sense danger better. I think that comes from motherhood and survival. We’ve been navigating the danger zone forever. We may or may not be smarter. But, we think about the dangers of things ahead more than men. That’s just my opinion and I may get slammed for saying it. But, we have lots of practice. I’m suspicious of it all and worry that “we don’t know what we don’t know”. I think AI is a dangerous road unless thought through carefully. I’ve never used it. I know it can be useful. But, we need to be damn clear why we’re using it and what the implications are.

usonian

(27,295 posts)
5. I've heard both sides of that.
Mon Jun 29, 2026, 10:14 PM
Monday

1. Men are known to be suspicious, looking all over, for example, exiting a building, an eye out for trouble. And this has been considered an annoyance, as if paranoid.

2. Women must feel constant threat from larger and stronger beings, too often with bad intentions. Perhaps as in #1, that's not verbalized.

As you noted, it has to be a factor, felt not just in advance, but constantly.

And more likely to think ahead and strategize/avoid.

No psych degree here, just a techie, so I defer to those with a better understanding of psychology.

Men can be statistically more reckless. Those Bored Panda pix at the link I posted register --- unfortunately.

And more impressed by novelty. I recall reading in National Lampoon (of course) that men like things that "Are big, go fast, and explode" It was supposed to be satire.

Just my two cents worth, and if bogus, correct me.

bamagal62

(4,681 posts)
6. All of your points are valid.
Mon Jun 29, 2026, 10:38 PM
Monday

Although, I don’t know any men that fall under #1, unless they’ve been smoking weed.😂 But, I also don’t know any men that carry a gun. My guess is most of them fall under #1! I think men can be suspicious, but I feel it wouldn’t be about AI.

usonian

(27,295 posts)
7. Yeah, complex. Men do respond to physical danger, or the perception therof.
Mon Jun 29, 2026, 11:38 PM
Monday

Some deer were passing through and a shout does nothing. They seem to respond only to motion in their direction.

I get photos of the wildflowers that they refuse to eat. Everything else is fair game, and roses are yummy candy to them, so I grow nothing (changing the subject). I do miss growing roses and it's time to move anyway.

Just making observations.

Having been into science and math forever, I am more into probabilities.

We as humans are really bad at estimating things. For example, a spectacular rarity like the 9/11 attack biases us toward overestimating the probability of this exceedingly rare event. And we wasted tons of resources and half our freedoms combating it. (some really gained advantage thereby)

Here is a list of cognitive biases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

I look at that and wonder how we get anything done right at all.

Part of my career was creating "error budgets" for optical systems, so every little source of error has to be taken into account and you (wisely) throw money at the biggest ones and those that give you the most improvement for your money, complexity and time. And some things are just warning bells, when they can't be reduced or eliminated, referring to AI failure modes that are pretty much baked in by their design.

People are using it outside its area of applicability, or safe operating area. Because it's new and shiny (a cognitive bias)

bamagal62

(4,681 posts)
8. I laugh at the deer comment!
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 12:11 AM
Tuesday

I lived in NJ with deer everywhere! Funny how they knew what they could not eat! It was a constant search to find desirable looking plants that they would not devour. But, they know! And, we learned. Never tried shouting at them! I loved seeing them as they are beautiful creatures. But hated when they ate my plants!

usonian

(27,295 posts)
9. Totally agree.
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 12:51 AM
Tuesday

I just shout to see if they react (they don't) and there's nobody up here to talk to anyway.

My problem is when they are in the road. I believe that they react to danger by staying still and then moving in some RANDOM direction. The problem with that is that half the random directions are in the road. Not adapted to modern life.

They will also bolt onto a 60mph highway when somehow spooked on land. Don't ask me how I know about this.

Well, when I lived in San Francisco's east bay, we were near a lake and there were hills as well. One day I stopped short when one crossed the road by the lake (My daughter was with me) and again later (I think she was with me then as well) In the hills, when she was visiting a friend. It must have been mating season, when they apparently are in crazy mode. The home was near a green belt of sorts. And it showed. But they never left that general area, as it gave way pretty abruptly to "real" suburbs.

wnylib

(26,893 posts)
11. Women not only deal with larger beings that we need to be wary of,
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 01:32 AM
Tuesday

but quite often it is still women who have the role of looking after smaller beings in our families. Women are often the ones looking out for danger to children and not always physical dangers. Situations that could have harmful effects emotionally or psychologically on children are often on women's minds. We develop a wariness for possible dangerous or unhealthy situations.

Today's men are also often involved in child care at home, or in professions that deal with children e.g. teaching, medical professions, psychologists. I didn't mean to imply that men do not have a sense of responsibility for people in their care. They certainly do. But it seems to me that, in general, men's and women's approaches and perspectives are often different. But of course, both men and women vary so my impressions would not apply to all men and women.






usonian

(27,295 posts)
13. My wife had an evening shift as an R.N., so I got to be MIster Mom for a while, and I felt that responsibility.
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 02:03 AM
Tuesday

Of course culture affects us a whole lot, and I find a lot of it abusive, as in "controlling"

To suit its oligarchs.

I save the photo of little me in a Hopalong Cassidy outfit, ready to shoot 'em up.

I outgrew that, and was the lead pacifist in the family.

All I ever shot was photos. Even in the service.

I defy stereotypes.

wnylib

(26,893 posts)
15. I agree that culture affects us a.lot, not only in
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 03:48 AM
Tuesday

how we act, but in how we perceive other people.


meadowlander

(5,189 posts)
10. As a gross generalisation, I suspect many men have come up in a "fake it until you make it" corporate culture
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 01:26 AM
Tuesday

which plays quite well to AI. Meanwhile most women have had to prove they actually have the goods over and over again. Likely they resent a tool that superpowers fakery and the undeserved advancement of people who play office politics instead of getting actual high quality work done.

usonian

(27,295 posts)
12. Have the goods?
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 01:39 AM
Tuesday

How about having to work twice as hard for the same pay, and then have your boss take credit.

As a male, I didn't experience that, only the boss taking credit part. Taking credit for my ideas was so rampant that I rated bosses on how quickly they stole them. The worst one took years, and then got them wrong.

He changed the terms of my contract to something really abusive. (By way, there was no contract) and I didn't like them one bit, so I quit.

I dropped off all my keys, documentation and so on, on a Friday at 1 PM. No show. I waited until 2 PM. maybe longer, No show. Not sure when I just left them there and went home.

Did I leave in a huff? Nope. In a Toyota.

iemanja

(57,820 posts)
14. My sister used Chat GPT to redecorate her house
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 02:35 AM
Tuesday

Yeah, I found it strange too.

She recommended I use it to find a good dehumidifier. It wasn’t helpful, but it did help in assessing a company’s customer service reliability.

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