ChatGPT Is More Likely to Be Perceived as Male Than Female

Abstract

Scholars and laypeople alike have been captivated by ChatGPT's human-like abilities. In the present research, we investigate how people perceive ChatGPT, and in particular, how they assign human-like attributes such as gender to the chatbot. Across five pre-registered studies (N = 1,552), we find that people are more likely to perceive ChatGPT to be male than female (1) in the absence of any information provided by researchers, (2) following demonstrations of ChatGPT’s abilities (providing information, summarizing text, etc.), and (3) across different methods of eliciting perceived gender (various scales and asking for a name of ChatGPT). Moreover, we find that this seemingly default perception of ChatGPT as male can reverse when ChatGPT’s other abilities are highlighted (e.g., acting as a therapist for a user). Our research has implications for perceptions of new technology, a potential male bias for ambiguous stimuli, and social cognitive processes of gender identification.