Men Can’t Stop Faking How Much They Know About AI

Say you’re a guy who reads WIRED—you know a thing or two about artificial intelligence. You recognize the names of well-known people developing AI, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. But do you know who Mira Murati is? What about Susan Milner? Craig Dalton?

In a new survey of more than 5,400 Americans, 73 percent of male respondents told Harvard researchers they knew who Altman was. A little over half—53 percent—said they knew of Murati, Milner, and Dalton.

There’s one problem. Murati is a real person: she’s the former CTO of OpenAI and the current CEO of Thinking Machine Labs. Milner and Dalton, on the other hand, do not exist.

Compared to women, “we're seeing that men are more optimistic and more confident” across the board when it comes to AI, Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center executive director Laura Manley tells WIRED. Sometimes, that veers into overconfidence—like claiming to recognize fictional AI executives. (For context, 40 percent of women claimed to know who Milner and Dalton were; 38 percent said they recognized Murati.)

While Manley notes that men are more overconfident in general when surveyed, the report, published on Wednesday, digs into what the confidence gap on AI looks like, as well as the repercussions of gendered divides.

Researchers found that men use AI more frequently and are, on average, better able to correctly answer factual questions about AI. But men and women answer questions incorrectly at around the same rate. The discrepancy is based on how often women said they weren’t sure of an answer—an average of 3.3 questions out of 12 compared to 2.3 questions for men.

“Maybe there should be more women prominently featured as experts or given the platform to express: not sure,” Manley says.

“We have to be able to be able to say ‘not sure’ more often,” Manley says.