Just nine out of 116 AI professionals in key films are women, study finds

A relentless stream of movies, from Iron Man to Ex Machina, has helped entrench systemic gender inequality in the artificial intelligence industry by portraying AI researchers almost exclusively as men, a study has found.

The overwhelming predominance of men as leading AI researchers in movies has shaped public perceptions of the industry, the authors say, and risks contributing to a dramatic lack of women in the tech workforce.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge reviewed more than 1,400 films released between 1920 and 2020 and whittled them down to the 142 most influential movies featuring artificial intelligence. Their analysis identified 116 AI professionals. Only nine of these were women, of which five worked for a man or were the child or partner of a more senior male AI engineer.

Prof Dame Wendy Hall, a regius professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, said there was an urgent need for a campaign to increase diversity in AI. Hall wrote her first paper on the lack of women in computing in 1987, and said the situation was worse with AI because the potential impact on society was so great.