Survey Finds 53% of Men Claimed to Know Fake AI Executives
Updated
Updated · WIRED · Oct 14
Survey Finds 53% of Men Claimed to Know Fake AI Executives
3 articles · Updated · WIRED · Oct 14
Summary
More than half of male respondents in a Harvard survey of 5,400 Americans said they recognized two nonexistent AI executives, while 73% said they knew OpenAI chief Sam Altman.
The gap reflected confidence more than accuracy: men and women got factual AI questions wrong at about the same rate, but women were far more likely to answer "not sure"—3.3 times out of 12 versus 2.3 for men.
Women also reported lower familiarity with real AI figures, with 38% recognizing Mira Murati and 40% saying they knew the fictional names, compared with 53% of men for both.
That confidence imbalance may shape public discourse: men appeared in AI headlines more than 14 times as often as women, and three-quarters of quoted AI experts were men even though the talent pool is about 29% women.
Across both genders, concern was the top emotion around AI, but women expressed more fear and worry while men rated positive feelings such as curiosity and excitement higher.