ChatGPT: A Meta-Analysis after 2.5 Months
This meta-analysis informs the public debate and future development of ChatGPT by providing evidence on its perception across social media and scientific literature.
The authors analyzed over 300,000 tweets and 150 scientific papers to assess ChatGPT's perception after 2.5 months, finding it generally viewed as high quality with positive sentiment in social media, though perceptions slightly declined over time and varied by language and domain.
ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, has gained widespread popularity and media attention since its release in November 2022. However, little hard evidence is available regarding its perception in various sources. In this paper, we analyze over 300,000 tweets and more than 150 scientific papers to investigate how ChatGPT is perceived and discussed. Our findings show that ChatGPT is generally viewed as of high quality, with positive sentiment and emotions of joy dominating in social media. Its perception has slightly decreased since its debut, however, with joy decreasing and (negative) surprise on the rise, and it is perceived more negatively in languages other than English. In recent scientific papers, ChatGPT is characterized as a great opportunity across various fields including the medical domain, but also as a threat concerning ethics and receives mixed assessments for education. Our comprehensive meta-analysis of ChatGPT's current perception after 2.5 months since its release can contribute to shaping the public debate and informing its future development. We make our data available.