Who are the world's generative AI users? That is the question addressed in this recent article by Yan Liu and He Wang (both World Bank), published in the journal World Development (ungated earlier version here). They use website traffic data from Semrush, alongside Google Trends data, to document worldwide generative AI use up to March 2024 (so, it's a bit dated now, as this is a fast-moving area, but it does provide an interesting snapshot up to that point). In particular, Liu and Wang focus on geographical heterogeneity in generative AI use (measured as visits to generative AI websites, predominantly, or in some of their analyses, entirely ChatGPT), and they explore how that relates to country-level differences in institutions, infrastructure, and other variables.
Some of the results are fairly banal, such as the rapid increase in website traffic to AI chatbot websites, a corresponding decline in traffic to sites such as Google, and Stack Overflow, and that the users skew younger, more educated, and male. Those demographic differences will likely become less dramatic over time as user numbers increase. However, the geographic differences are important and could be more persistent. Liu and Wang show that:
As of March 2024, the top five economies for ChatGPT traffic are the US, India, Brazil, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The US share of ChatGPT traffic dropped from 70 % to 25 % within one month of ChatGPT’s debut. Middle-income economies now contribute over 50 % of traffic, showing disproportionately high adoption of generative AI relative to their GDP, electricity consumption, and search engine traffic. Low-income economies, however, represent less than 1 % of global ChatGPT traffic.
So, as of 2024, most generative AI use was in middle-income countries, but remember that those are also high-population countries (like India). Generative AI users are disproportionately from high-income countries once income and internet use (proxied by search engine traffic) are accounted for. Figure 12 in the paper illustrates this nicely, showing generative AI use, measured as visits per internet user:
Notice that the darker-coloured countries, where a higher proportion of internet users used ChatGPT, are predominantly in North America, western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. On that measure, Liu and Wang rank New Zealand 20th (compared with Singapore first, and Australia eighth). There are a few interesting outliers like Suriname (sixth) and Panama (17th), but the vast majority of the top twenty countries are high-income countries.
What accounts for generative AI use at the country level? Using a cross-country panel regression model, Liu and Wang find that:
Higher income levels, a higher share of youth population, bet-ter digital infrastructure, and stronger human capital are key predictors of higher generative AI uptake. Services’ share of GDP and English fluency are strongly associated with higher chatbot usage.
Now, those results simply demonstrate correlation, and are not causal. And website traffic could be biased due to use of VPNs, etc., not to mention that it doesn't account very well for traffic from China or Russia (and Liu and Wang are very upfront about that limitation). Nevertheless, it does provide a bit more information about how countries with high generative AI use differ from those with low generative AI use. Generative AI has the potential to level the playing field somewhat for lower-productivity workers, and lower-income countries. However, that can only happen if lower-income countries access generative AI. And it appears as if, up to March 2024 at least, they are instead falling behind. As Liu and Wang conclude, any catch-up potential from generative AI:
...depends on further development as well as targeted policy interventions to improve digital infrastructure, language accessibility, and foundational skills.
To be fair, that sounds like a general prescription for development policy in any case.
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