This Is How Curious Montanans Are About AI

Do you talk about AI with your colleagues, friends, or family?

Montana, historically, is a late adopter of many trends, but the internet has been a bit of an equalizer. In the conversations I've had about AI, I know people who use it, but most of what I hear is that people don't like it, think it needs more regulation, or they don't know how they feel about it.

We've been informally tracking news stories about AI on our show and we decided to keep score to see if "robots" were benefitting society, or if it was clear that a human solution was better. As you can see, things are tied so far.

But one of the natural tendencies, rare as it may be, when anything is new is to be curious. I've yet to have a conversation with someone who has said they're just curious about AI--that they haven't formed an opinion about it yet.

But our actions and how we use the internet may be giving away how curious we are about AI.

The research website wisevoter.com used Google search trends to measure how curious people were about AI in each state. The trends they looked at included keywords like "chat gpt" and "artificial intelligence" and then they created an AI Search Index and ranked the 50 states.

This may be one area where Montana has returned to its purple, independent roots. In this study, Montana ranks 24th in how curious we are about AI, nearly dead center compared to other states. The top state was Utah and the #1 rank went to the District of Columbia but several western states are in the top 10: Idaho, Oregon, California, Washington, and Utah.

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