UK girls tend to be more concerned about AI bias than UK boys, new research from InnovateHer has found.

The social enterprise focused on gender parity in tech, asked over a thousand students from the ages of 12 to 17 about their opinions on AI, finding gender discrepancies in interest.

Boys were more interested in the subject than girls (69% vs 54%), but the research found further differences in what areas of AI drew the most focus. While girls were more concerned about bias, boys showed more concern about AI’s implications in cybersecurity.

“While it’s encouraging to see such interest [in AI] from both sides, these differences risk reinforcing long-standing stereotypes,” co-founder and CEO of InnovateHer, Chelsea Slater, said. “We believe these patterns stem from the messages young people receive from an early age about careers, tech and who belongs in those spaces.”

The differences went further, with girls more interested in the ethics of AI, as well as AI policy and data analysis. Boys tended to show a proclivity for robotics, AI development, and machine learning.

Further, girls and boys have different ideas on how AI will affect their future – only about three in ten (29%) girls think AI will create more jobs, compared with over half (53%) of boys.

Almost seven in ten girls think that AI will actually make it more difficult for women to break into the tech sector, believing that AI bias will discriminate against them in the hiring process, compounding the lack of role models present in the sector.

Most girls (79%) also want to see tougher regulations on AI, especially to prevent bias, as 71% had concerns that AI would only reinforce the already existing gender bias in the tech sphere.

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Boys are again, less concerned with bias, and more concerned about AI regulations when it comes to privacy and cybersecurity.

Girls were also more concerned about AI’s affects on social media algorithms, saying that this has lead to worsening mental health, ranging from worsening body image to online bullying.

Only about three in ten (29%) of boys said they felt that AI plays a role in online harms, with less thinking this could lead to worse mental health.