Humanlike AI May Strengthen Women’s Agreement With Sexist Stereotypes

AI can influence societally-consequential attitudes by generating biased arguments – but can it influence our attitudes without changing its arguments at all? In four experiments (N = 2,762), we show that the mere presence of humanlike features in an AI chatbot influences women to more strongly accept ideologically-compatible sexist stereotypes, biases that often resist influence and have societal harm. This influence operates indirectly by increasing “mind perception” – the belief that AI is conscious and thinking – which increases perceptions of its trustworthiness. Our contribution is that anthropomorphism’s influence extends beyond increased trust toward AI itself, impacting women’s broader attitudes about their competence and status. This influence happens when women are attentive during conversations with AI. As developers add more anthropomorphic features to AI, the harms of stereotypes it repeats will increase for vulnerable groups – but making AI appear less humanlike can mitigate this risk.