How ChatGPT Changed the Media's Narratives on AI: A Semi-Automated Narrative Analysis Through Frame Semantics

TL;DR

This study analyzes how media narratives around AI shifted after ChatGPT's launch, showing increased attention, focus on risks, and anthropomorphic portrayals through a large-scale semi-automated frame semantics analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mixed-method approach using frame semantics to analyze media discourse on AI during a critical period around ChatGPT's release.

Findings

Media attention on AI increased tenfold post-ChatGPT.

Discourse shifted towards experts, political figures, and risks.

Qualitative change in perceived AI threats and anthropomorphism.

Abstract

We perform a mixed-method frame semantics-based analysis on a dataset of more than 49,000 sentences collected from 5846 news articles that mention AI. The dataset covers the twelve-month period centred around the launch of OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT and is collected from the most visited open-access English-language news publishers. Our findings indicate that during the six months succeeding the launch, media attention rose tenfold$\unicode{x2014}$from already historically high levels. During this period, discourse has become increasingly centred around experts and political leaders, and AI has become more closely associated with dangers and risks. A deeper review of the data also suggests a qualitative shift in the types of threat AI is thought to represent, as well as the anthropomorphic qualities ascribed to it.