Awareness of artificial intelligence: Diffusion of information about AI versus ChatGPT in the United States

This paper addresses the awareness about the artificial intelligence across states in the United States. We uniquely create indices of Google internet search results for general AI awareness and about ChatGPT, normalizing alternatively by internet users and land area. An understanding of the awareness about AI would provide useful insights into regulatory attempts to monitor and guard the AI technologies, besides suggesting alternatives for laggard states to catch up. Econometric results to explain the drivers of AI awareness show that, ceteris paribus, more prosperous states had greater awareness about AI and ChatGPT. On the other hand, states with greater economic freedom had a lower awareness. States with more men to women has lower AI awareness when hits were normalized by area, but the reverse was true when weighted by internet users. States with a higher proportion of the elderly population were no different from the other states, while those with greater urbanization had more AI/ChatGPT awareness when the internet hits were weighted by land area. Finally, states bordering Canada were no different from other states, while states bordering Mexico generally had a lower AI/ChatGPT awareness.