Information Foraging in the Era of AI : Exploring the Effect of ChatGPT on Digital Q&A Platforms
Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Bard have been widely recognized as one of the fastest-growing technologies in history. They have gained considerable attention in the news due to their potential to cause significant transformation in various industries, particularly in traditional online Q&A platforms. Knowing its emergence and great potential to reform how online users forage information, in this study, we explore the impact of this technology on content generation and consumption on online Q&A forums, taking the most well-known Q&A platform "Stack Exchange" as an example. Our initial findings demonstrate that since the launch of ChatGPT, there has been an upward trend in the quality and complexity of questions being asked on the platform. This suggests that users are now more inclined to seek answers to more challenging questions rather than easier ones on online Q&A forums. In addition, we also observed a corresponding rise in both the length and complexity of the answers provided on the platform. Our second set of findings indicates that there has been a notable decrease in the number of visits, posts, users, and active users on Stack Exchange following the introduction of the LLM, particularly within the Technology sector. We further validated these results by analyzing the behavior of users and posts on Stack Overflow. Our research suggests that the adoption of this AI technology has hurt the overall engagement of online Q&A platforms. Finally, we discuss the potential business implications of our study and highlight future research opportunities in this area
Year of publication: |
[2023]
|
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Authors: | Sanatizadeh, Aida ; Lu, Yingda ; Zhao, Keran ; Hu, Yuheng |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (35 p) |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Notes: | Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments May 26, 2023 erstellt |
Other identifiers: | 10.2139/ssrn.4459729 [DOI] |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014348202
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