经济学人 | 为什么女性不爱用人工智能？

Why don’t women use artificial intelligence?

为什么女性不爱用人工智能？

Even when in the same jobs, men are much more likely to turn to the tech

即使从事同样的工作，男性也更有可能借助科技

Be more productive. That is how ChatGPT, a generative-artificial-intelligence tool from OpenAI, sells itself to workers. But despite industry hopes that the technology will boost productivity across the workforce, not everyone is on board. 

提高工作效率，这是 OpenAI 公司的人工智能生成工具 ChatGPT 向职场人士推介自身的独特卖点。尽管业界普遍寄望于这项技术能全面提升员工的工作效率，但并非所有人都对此持乐观态度。

According to two recent studies, women use ChatGPT between 16 and 20 percentage points less than their male peers, even when they are employed in the same jobs or read the same subject.

根据近期两项研究揭示的数据，即便是在从事相同工作或阅读相同主题的情况下，女性使用 ChatGPT 的比例相较于男性仍低了16%至20%。

The first study, published as a working paper in June, explores ChatGPT at work. Anders Humlum of the University of Chicago and Emilie Vestergaard of the University of Copenhagen surveyed 100,000 Danes across 11 professions in which the technology could save workers time, including journalism, software-developing and teaching. 

第一项研究于今年6月以工作论文的形式发布，深入探讨了 ChatGPT 在职场环境中的应用情况。芝加哥大学的安德斯·胡姆勒姆与哥本哈根大学的埃米莉·维斯特加德合作，对丹麦11个行业、共计10万名从业者进行了调查，这些行业的技术应用具备节省工人时间的特点，涵盖了新闻业、软件开发及教育领域。

The researchers asked respondents how often they turned to ChatGPT and what might keep them from adopting it. By exploiting Denmark’s extensive, hooked-up record-keeping, they were able to connect the answers with personal information, including income, wealth and education level.

研究者们询问了受访者使用 ChatGPT 的频率以及阻碍其采纳该技术的可能因素，并借助丹麦广泛的、相互连接的记录保存系统，将回答与受访者的个人信息（包括收入、财富及教育水平）进行了关联分析。

Across all professions, women were less likely to use ChatGPT than men who worked in the same industry. For example, only a third of female teachers used it for work, compared with half of male teachers. 

在所有职业类别中，女性使用 ChatGPT 的可能性普遍低于同行业的男性。举例来说，仅有三分之一的女性教师在工作中使用了 ChatGPT，而男性教师的这一比例则达到了半数。

Among software developers, almost two-thirds of men used it while less than half of women did. The gap shrank only slightly, to 16 percentage points, when directly comparing people in the same firms working on similar tasks. 

在软件开发人员群体中，接近三分之二的男性采用了该技术，而女性用户则不足半数。当直接对比同一家公司内从事相似工作的员工时，这一差距虽略有缩小，但仍保持在16个百分点。

As such, the study concludes that a lack of female confidence may be in part to blame: women who did not use AI were more likely than men to highlight that they needed training to use the technology.

据此，研究得出结论，女性自信心的缺乏可能是造成这一现象的部分原因：相较于男性，未使用人工智能的女性更有可能表达出接受相关培训的需求。

Another potential explanation for the gender imbalance comes from a survey of 486 students by Daniel Carvajal at Aalto University and Catalina Franco and Siri Isaksson at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). 

关于性别失衡的另一种潜在解释，来自阿尔托大学的丹尼尔·卡瓦哈尔以及挪威经济学院（NHH）的卡塔琳娜·佛朗哥和西里·伊萨克松对486名学生的调研。

It also found a gender gap: female students enrolled in the NHH’s only undergraduate programme were 18 percentage points less likely to use ChatGPT often. 

研究同样发现了性别差异：在 NHH 唯一的本科项目中，女性学生使用 ChatGPT 的频率低了18个百分点。

When the researchers separated students by admission grades, it became clear that the gap reflected the behaviour of mid- and high-performing women. Low performers were almost as likely as men to use the technology.

当依据入学成绩对学生进行分层分析时，这种差距主要体现在表现中上水平的女性学生身上。表现欠佳的女性几乎与男性同样可能使用这项技术。

Why might this be? The researchers probed what was going on with some clever follow-up questions. They asked students whether they would use ChatGPT if their professor forbade it, and received a similar distribution of answers. 

为什么会这样？研究人员通过设计一系列巧妙的后续问题来探究背后的原因。他们询问学生，如果教授禁止使用 ChatGPT，他们是否会继续使用，结果得到了相似的答案分布。

However, in the context of explicit approval, everyone, including the better-performing women, reported that they would make use of the technology. In other words, the high-achieving women appeared to impose a ban on themselves. 

然而，在明确得到使用许可的情况下，包括表现较好的女性在内的所有人都表示会利用这项技术。换言之，成绩优异的女性似乎给自己设定了一种限制。

“It’s the ‘good girl’ thing,” reckons Ms Isaksson. “It’s this idea that ‘I have to go through this pain, I have to do it on my own and I shouldn’t cheat and take short-cuts’.”

伊萨克松认为：“这是‘好孩子’才会有的想法，这是一种‘我必须承受这种艰难，我必须亲力亲为，我不应欺骗或寻求捷径’的心理。”

A lack of experience with AI could carry a cost when students enter the labour market. In August the researchers added a survey of 1,143 hiring managers to their study, revealing that managers value high-performing women with AI expertise 8% more than those without. This sort of premium does not exist for men, suggesting that there are rewards for women who are willing to relax their self-imposed ban.

当学生步入劳动力市场时，缺乏人工智能经验可能会带来一定的成本。今年8月，研究人员在研究中增加了一项对1143名招聘经理的调查，结果显示，相较于不具备人工智能专业知识的女性，经理们对掌握人工智能专业知识的高绩效女性评价高出8%。而在男性群体中，这种溢价并不存在，这表明，对于那些愿意打破自我限制的女性而言，回报是显而易见的。

Tera Allas of McKinsey, a consultancy, worries that by the time AI is firmly embedded into modern working life, it might be designed to appeal more to men, who are its main users—potentially shutting women out in the long term. 

麦肯锡咨询公司的泰拉·阿拉斯担忧，随着人工智能深度融入现代工作生活，它可能会被设计成更吸引其主流用户——男性，长此以往，女性或将面临被边缘化的风险。

But not everyone is as concerned. Despite the fact that the early internet was dominated by men, for example, young American women were more online than their male counterparts by 2005. 

然而，并非所有人都持此悲观态度。例如，尽管早期的互联网由男性主导，但至2005年，美国年轻女性的上网人数已超越男性。

On top of this, Danielle Li of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes that the studies do not actually show whether men’s current ChatGPT use translates into better or more productive work. At the moment, the technology may be more of a digital toy, she says. Perhaps, then, high-achieving women are simply better at avoiding distraction.

此外，麻省理工学院的丹妮尔·李指出，这些研究实际上并未表明当前男性使用 ChatGPT 会转化为更高效或更有成果的工作。她认为，目前，这项技术更像是一个数字玩具。或许，高成就的女性只是更擅长避免不必要的分心。

苏格拉底有一句名言：我知我无知。说的是，当你认识到的东西越多就越发现自己无知。苏格拉底认为，人对于客观世界的认识是有限的，且不可能完全认识客观世界，并且不应对客观世界刨根究底。神对于世界的规划自有安排，若人一意孤行地探索世界和自然的奥秘，则最终将亵渎甚至触怒神明。正因为人对神所构建的世界不可能实现完全认知，因此那些宣称自己能够认识和改造世界的人，本身便是无知的代言。尽管苏格拉底的关于“ 我知我无知”的观念的解读，在现在看来有失客观科学。但至少苏格拉底告诫人们，人的认知是有限的，现有的知识甚至可能存在错误和疏漏。同样地，我们在求学之路上也要报以我知我不知的心态，才能走得更远。最后，祝愿莘莘学子都能终有所成！