# There Aren’t That Many Women in AI Fields, Both in Reality and in Film. What Needs to Change?

By carey.scott · Published 2023-02-28 · Updated 2026-04-03 · Sciences on MarketScale
Canonical: https://www.marketscale.com/industries/sciences/there-arent-that-many-women-in-ai-fields-both-in-reality-and-in-film-what-needs-to-change

> Around the world, women make up less than a quarter of the AI workforce. This data, shared by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is indicative of a bias that starts in childhood. According to the WEF, reasons like societal and cultural norms can lead to fewer women taking up STEM education. Experts believe that the…

## Key points

- Around the world, women make up less than a quarter of the AI workforce.
- This data, shared by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is indicative of a bias that starts in childhood.
- According to the WEF, reasons like societal and cultural norms can lead to fewer women taking up STEM education.

Around the world, women make up less than a [quarter of the AI workforce](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/why-we-must-act-now-to-close-the-gender-gap-in-ai/). This data, shared by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is indicative of [a bias that starts in childhood](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/5-ways-increase-women-working-ai/). According to the WEF, reasons like [societal and cultural norms](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/stem-women-gender-equality-science-technology-engineering-mathematics/) can lead to fewer women taking up STEM education. Experts believe that the number of [women in AI](https://marketscale.com/industries/engineering-and-construction/exciting-career-opportunities-for-women-in-stem/) will only increase when equal opportunities are created for women.

Life imitates art and art imitates life, right? The notion applies to women’s representation in the data science field, too; [the WEF’s unfortunate statistic](https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-researchers-gender-imbalance/) is present even in media content. A study, conducted by Cambridge University researchers, found that barely [8% of AI professionals depicted in popular movies between 1920 and 2020 were women](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/13/just-nine-out-of-116-ai-professionals-in-films-are-women-study-finds). As many as 1,400 films on AI were reviewed as part of the study, out of which 142 influential films were finally analyzed. A total of 116 AI professionals were identified, of which just nine were female. Prominent movies that were analyzed included *Ex Machina*, released in 2014, and those from the *Avengers* franchise.

### **Dr. Natalie’s Thoughts:** 

[Dr. Natalie Morse](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliemorse/), a senior data scientist at [Torqata Data and Analytics](https://torqata.com/), discussed why universal childcare and formalized federal parental leave policies could go a long way in changing the current statistics on women in AI and other STEM fields.

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