Tweeting AI: Perceptions of Lay vs Expert Twitterati

TL;DR

This study analyzes Twitter discussions to compare perceptions of AI between general users and experts, revealing differences in emotions, interests, and concerns about AI's future and societal impact.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of lay and expert perceptions of AI on Twitter, highlighting distinct emotional responses and focus areas among different user groups.

Findings

Both groups view AI positively and are optimistic about its progress.

Experts express more negative sentiments than general users.

Experts focus more on personal news, while general users are more concerned about automation's future impact.

Abstract

With the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), various organizations and individuals are debating about the progress of AI as a blessing or a curse for the future of the society. This paper conducts an investigation on how the public perceives the progress of AI by utilizing the data shared on Twitter. Specifically, this paper performs a comparative analysis on the understanding of users belonging to two categories -- general AI-Tweeters (AIT) and expert AI-Tweeters (EAIT) who share posts about AI on Twitter. Our analysis revealed that users from both the categories express distinct emotions and interests towards AI. Users from both the categories regard AI as positive and are optimistic about the progress of AI but the experts are more negative than the general AI-Tweeters. Expert AI-Tweeters share relatively large percentage of tweets about their personal news compared to technical aspects of AI. However, the effects of automation on the future are of primary concern to AIT than to EAIT. When the expert category is sub-categorized, the emotion analysis revealed that students and industry professionals have more insights in their tweets about AI than academicians.