The Future of Farming: Californians’ Attitudes About AI in Agriculture

Given the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the agricultural sector, especially in states like California, it becomes increasingly important to understand public attitudes toward these emerging technologies. Existing research highlights the potentially important role that media and value predispositions play in the formation and reinforcement of attitudes toward science, technology, and agriculture. Grounded in programmatic and genre-specific cultivation, this study uses a survey of California residents (N = 601) to determine how different types of media viewing behavior and value predispositions, such as deference to scientific authority, political ideology, and religiosity, influence attitudes toward AI in agriculture. A series of OLS regressions found that following technology news closely, engaging with political news, watching news channels like Fox News, and watching a lot of science fiction are all associated with varying degrees of support for AI. Additionally, deference to scientific authority serves as a robust measurement that is strongly associated with positive attitudes toward AI. Taken together, the results have both theoretical and practical applications for our understanding of the connection between media, agriculture, and emerging technologies.