The digital divide describes disparities in access to and usage of digital
tooling between social and economic groups. Emerging generative artificial
intelligence tools, which strongly affect productivity, could magnify the
impact of these divides. However, the affordability, multi-modality, and
multilingual capabilities of these tools could also make them more accessible
to diverse users in comparison with previous forms of digital tooling. In this
study, we characterize spatial differences in U.S. residents' knowledge of a
new generative AI tool, ChatGPT, through an analysis of state- and county-level
search query data. In the first six months after the tool's release, we observe
the highest rates of users searching for ChatGPT in West Coast states and
persistently low rates of search in Appalachian and Gulf states. Counties with
the highest rates of search are relatively more urbanized and have
proportionally more educated, more economically advantaged, and more Asian
residents in comparison with other counties or with the U.S. average. In
multilevel models adjusting for socioeconomic and demographic factors as well
as industry makeup, education is the strongest positive predictor of rates of
search for generative AI tooling. Although generative AI technologies may be
novel, early differences in uptake appear to be following familiar paths of
digital marginalization.

数字鸿沟描述了社会和经济群体在数字工具的访问和使用上的差异。新兴的生成性人工智能工具可能会放大这些差距的影响。然而，这些工具的可负担性、多模态性和多语种能力也可能使它们比先前的数字工具更容易被多样化的用户所接触。在本研究中，我们通过分析美国居民的 ChatGPT 搜索数据的州和县级差异来描述这个新的生成性人工智能工具的知识。工具发布后的前六个月中，我们观察到在西海岸州的用户对 ChatGPT 的搜索率最高，并且在阿巴拉契亚和墨西哥湾的州的搜索率持续较低。搜索率最高的县相对更为城市化，相对拥有更高受教育水平、经济上的优势，以及更多亚洲居民，相较于其他县或美国的平均水平。在调整社会经济和人口统计因素以及行业构成的多层次模型中，教育是对生成性人工智能工具搜索率最强的正向预测因子。尽管生成性人工智能技术可能是新颖的，但是早期的采用差异似乎正在按照熟悉的数字边缘化路径发展。