Who makes AI? Gender and portrayals of artificial intelligence scientists in popular film, 1920–2020

Abstract

It is well established both that women are underrepresented in the field of artificial intelligence and that media representations of professions have impact on career choices and prospects. We therefore hypothesised that women are underrepresented in portrayals of artificial intelligence researchers in influential films. We tested this by analysing a corpus of the 142 most influential films featuring artificial intelligence from 1920 to 2020, of which 86 showed one or more artificial intelligence researchers, totalling 116 individuals. We found that nine (8%) of artificial intelligence professionals in film were women. We further found that none of the 142 artificial intelligence films was solely directed by a woman. We discuss a number of explanations for the paucity of women artificial intelligence scientists in the media, including parallels between film and real-life gender inequality, the construction of the artificial intelligence scientist as male through gendered narrative tropes and the lack of female directors.