The Value, Benefits, and Concerns of Generative AI-Powered Assistance in Writing

TL;DR

This study investigates how generative AI tools influence human writing, revealing increased productivity and confidence but also concerns about accountability and diversity, with people valuing AI assistance especially for creative tasks.

Contribution

The paper provides empirical insights into user attitudes, benefits, and risks of AI-powered writing assistance, highlighting its impact on productivity, confidence, and perceived accountability.

Findings

People are willing to pay less or nothing for AI writing help.

AI assistance boosts productivity and confidence in writing.

Risks include reduced accountability and diversity in writing.

Abstract

Recent advances in generative AI technologies like large language models raise both excitement and concerns about the future of human-AI co-creation in writing. To unpack people's attitude towards and experience with generative AI-powered writing assistants, in this paper, we conduct an experiment to understand whether and how much value people attach to AI assistance, and how the incorporation of AI assistance in writing workflows changes people's writing perceptions and performance. Our results suggest that people are willing to forgo financial payments to receive writing assistance from AI, especially if AI can provide direct content generation assistance and the writing task is highly creative. Generative AI-powered assistance is found to offer benefits in increasing people's productivity and confidence in writing. However, direct content generation assistance offered by AI also comes with risks, including decreasing people's sense of accountability and diversity in writing. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.