Age, Gender & AI: The Research That's Changing How We Think About Bias | Prof. Solène Delecourt

Prof. Solène Delecourt, a faculty member in the Management of Organizations and Entrepreneurship & Innovation groups at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, shared key insights from her research on "Age and Gender Distortion in Online Media and Large Language Models." In this episode of Business Talk, host Deepak Bhatt sits down with Prof. Solène Delecourt, a faculty member in the Management of Organizations and Entrepreneurship & Innovation groups at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and a recipient of the Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professor award by Poets & Quants (2024). Drawing from her landmark research published in Nature, Prof. Delecourt shares insights from an analysis of over 1.3 million online images across Google, Wikipedia, IMDb, and YouTube, revealing how digital media does not merely reflect gender bias, it actively amplifies it. Her research further exposes a troubling age distortion effect, where the mere presence of a woman in an image led participants to estimate an occupation's average age as nearly 5.5 years younger. Extending her inquiry into artificial intelligence, Prof. Delecourt also presents findings from an audit of nearly 40,000 synthetic resumes processed through ChatGPT, which consistently assigned women lower experience, younger ages, and lower scores than male counterparts, challenging the widespread assumption that AI-driven hiring is neutral or objective. The conversation explores the societal and business implications of these findings, offering actionable recommendations for leaders to audit hiring pipelines, standardize screening processes, and maintain critical human oversight when deploying AI tools. This podcast is brought to you by Global Management Consultancy. Disclaimer: 1. The background music incorporated in this video is the intellectual property of its respective developer and is protected under applicable copyright laws. Notwithstanding that it is a free-to-use version, Business Talk, Global Management Consultancy, and Deepak Bhatt do not own, and expressly do not claim, any rights, title, or interest in or to this music. 2. Dr. Solène Delecourt shared key insights from her fascinating research, “Age and Gender Distortion in Online Media and Large Language Models”, in an engaging episode of the Business Talk podcast. The uploaded video contains copyrighted content, so changing any graphics, music, or on-screen appearance of the author or host is not allowed.