The Emerging Generative Artificial Intelligence Divide in the United States
This research highlights a potential generative AI divide that could exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities in the U.S., making it an incremental but important analysis of early adoption patterns.
The study examined disparities in awareness of ChatGPT across the U.S. during its first six months, finding that search volumes were higher in coastal metropolitan areas and correlated with more educated and economically advantaged populations, potentially reinforcing existing divides.
The digital divide refers to disparities in access to and use of digital tooling across social and economic groups. This divide can reinforce marginalization both at the individual level and at the level of places, because persistent economic advantages accrue to places where new technologies are adopted early. To what extent are emerging generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools subject to these social and spatial divides? We leverage a large-scale search query database to characterize U.S. residents' knowledge of a novel generative AI tool, ChatGPT, during its first six months of release. We identify hotspots of higher-than-expected search volumes for ChatGPT in coastal metropolitan areas, while coldspots are evident in the American South, Appalachia, and the Midwest. Nationwide, counties with the highest rates of search have proportionally more educated and more economically advantaged populations, as well as proportionally more technology and finance-sector jobs in comparison with other counties or with the national average. Observed associations with race/ethnicity and urbanicity are attenuated in fully adjusted hierarchical models, but education emerges as the strongest positive predictor of generative AI awareness. In the absence of intervention, early differences in uptake show a potential to reinforce existing spatial and socioeconomic divides.