Leena Nair, Chanel’s second global CEO, who has worked to increase gender diversity in the workplace, recently learned that OpenAI’s ChatGPT had a very different idea about the legacy luxury brand’s demographics.
Nair and her team visited Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle and spent some time experimenting with ChatGPT, Nair told the Stanford Graduate School of Business’s recent “View from the Top” talk. interview.
“We would say, ‘Show us a picture of the senior leadership team from Chanel visiting Microsoft’ — all men in suits,” she said.
Nair’s trip to Silicon Valley also included a visit to Google and other technology companies, part of Chanel’s drive to invest in artificial intelligence, including Lip scanneran AI-powered app that allows users to virtually try on lipsticks, which was introduced in 2021. But she said the image created by ChaptGPT to depict her team failed to account for the makeup of Chanel’s employees of 76% women, including the company’s CEO. She added that 96% of the brand’s customers are also women.
“The team was 100% men, not even wearing modern clothes,” she said. “Like, come on. This is what you have to offer?”
luck ChatGPT asked ChatGPT to create an image using the same prompt as Nair, and it created an image for both men and women. Chanel and OpenAI did not immediately respond luckRequest for comment. Microsoft declined to comment.
Gender biases in artificial intelligence and well-being
ChaptGPT has a history of downplaying the movement of women in leadership roles. A Study 2023 from UCLA that when ChatGPT and Alpaca, a large language model (LLM) created by Stanford University, were asked to write letters of recommendation for male and female candidates, they used words like “expert” and “integrity” to describe the men. “Beauty” and “joy” to describe women. LLM holders were also previously more likely to do so Take on historically male-dominated professions Like doctors for men, they will automatically associate “he” and “he” pronouns with those professions.
Nair believes that integrating AI into her company is non-negotiable, but she plans to introduce measures to address the biases and hallucinations that Continue the plague Technology.
“Yes, artificial intelligence is everywhere, and it will be transformative in our world, so luxury has to react to it. Chanel has to react to it,” said Nair.
“It is very important that we maintain the ethics and integrity of what we do,” she added. “I’m constantly talking to my tech friends, all the CEOs, and I’m saying, ‘Come on, guys, you’ve got to make sure you’re incorporating a human way of thinking into AI.’”
The careful examination of AI aligns with Nair’s previous work to address gender disparities in her workplace. Since starting her tenure at Chanel in 2021 — after working for 30 years at Unilever, where she rose to the rank of chief human resources officer — Nair has increased the proportion of female directors at the company from 38% to about 60%.
Nair’s role as global CEO disrupted a long line of male executives who had run the company. Beyond Maureen Checkett, who served as The first female global CEO of Chanel From 2007 to 2016, no other woman besides Nair held the CEO position in the brand’s 114-year history. Nair is also the company’s first Indian CEO. The head of the company that calls frequently Extreme fashion ideology As for her founder and designer Gabrielle Chanel, Nair is not shy about her desire to continue to deviate from Chanel’s long line of male CEOs.
“I was first in every job I did,” she said L said Wall Street Journal In 2023. “First woman, first black person, first Asian, first Indian, but I don’t want to be the last.”