AI Adoption Among Non-white Americans

“The digital divide seems to have flipped” The Economist reports–non-white American parents and educators are adopting artificial intelligence technologies faster than their white counterparts. This trend suggests the technology may offer an unexpected advantage to disadvantaged communities, despite fears that generative AI could increase disparities:

Yet ai is disrupting the digital-divide narrative. It is true that algorithms have disadvantaged black and Hispanic people in health care, policing and the court system. Facial-recognition software continues to struggle with non-white faces. Some ai chatbots have generated racist content. But when it comes to using ai personally, non-white families may be getting an edge.

According to the Walton Family Foundation, funded by members of the family behind Walmart, while 72% of white parents say they use AI personally, 80% of black and 84% of Hispanic parents say they do. Black teachers use AI in the classroom more often, and non-white children are also more likely to use AI at home: 68% of white parents say that their child uses AI chatbots for school, compared with 75% of Hispanic and 81% of black parents.