AI Models Erase Female Characters From Kids Stories In Botched Attempt At Neutrality

New research reveals leading AI models virtually eliminate female characters from generated children's stories. University of Washington researchers analyzed 23,800 AI-generated animal stories across six major models, finding female characters in just 2 percent of the outputs. The models omitted gender entirely 57 percent of the time in a blunt attempt at neutrality, mathematically worsening the existing 2-to-1 male bias found in human-published children's books. Google $GOOGL Gemini and OpenAI GPT-5.1 performed the worst, generating male characters 63 percent and 65 percent of the time, respectively. "The neutrality of these AI models didn't just erase female characters – it was all non-masculine identities." — Imani Finkley