According to a study of the discourse on Reddit following the launch of ChatGPT, the tech community’s opinions on artificial intelligence are more divided than those of the general public.
Researchers at the University of Rochester, led by Jiebo Luo, professor of computer science and professor of engineering, used ChatGPT and natural language processing techniques to analyze the topics and sentiments of 33,912 comments across 388 unique subreddits in the approximately six months following the launch of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool in November 2022.
The results appear in Telematics and IT.
Reddit is an online social network where registered users submit content and comments, including in topic-specific forums called subreddits. The researchers examined comments about AI in technology-focused subreddits such as “r/singularity” and “r/technology,” as well as in non-technical subreddits such as “r/futurology” and “r/wallstreetbets.”
The most discussed topics related to AI include its consciousness and intelligence, its development and model training, its business applications, the creativity it inspires, and its potential societal impact.
But while comments in non-technical subreddits are more likely to talk about AI as a positive force that can be used to improve society, the tech community is more divided.
“The tech community’s opinions were either strongly positive or strongly negative, stronger than those of the non-tech community,” says Luo.
“I think the polarization is due to the personal knowledge of the commentators. You can see this with some tech celebrities: people like Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of deep learning, are very pessimistic, while others like Sam Altman (the CEO of OpenAI) are far more optimistic.”
While the non-technical discussions on Reddit tended to focus on social issues like concerns about job replacement or forced furloughs, the tech-focused subreddits featured more focused discussions with stronger opinions in one direction or the other.
“On the positive side, members of the tech community say it can help improve productivity, and they are also excited about the open source culture with the development of Llama (Large Language Model Meta AI) or other open source language models,” says Hanjia Lyu, a computer science doctoral student involved in the study.
“Some of the concerns raised by the tech community relate to the ethical implications and potential impacts of AI advancements on society, as well as issues such as regulation and hallucinations.”
These discrepancies, the authors say, show that more needs to be done to demystify AI among the public and dispel common misconceptions and fears. They call on policymakers, developers, educators and researchers to develop clear and easy-to-understand explanations of AI technologies and their applications.
Source: University of Rochester
