Can Artificial Intelligence Improve Gender Equality? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Gender stereotypes and discriminatory practices in the education system are important reasons for women's under-representation in many fields. How to create a gender-neutral learning environment when teachers' gender composition and mindset are slow to change? Artificial intelligence (AI)'s recent development provides a way to achieve this goal. Engineers can make AI trainers appear gender neutral and not take gender-related information as input. We use data from a natural experiment where AI trainers replace some human teachers for a male-dominated strategic board game to test the effectiveness of such AI training. The introduction of AI improves boys' and girls' performance faster and reduces the pre-existing gender gap. Class recordings suggest that AI trainers' gender-neutral emotional status can partly explain the improvement in gender quality. We provide the first evidence demonstrating AI's potential to promote equality for society.