Exploring Public Attitudes and Sentiments toward ChatGPT in China: A Social Media Text Mining Study

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), especially the breakthroughs in natural language processing, the discussion of generative AI on social media has increased significantly. This paper takes ChatGPT as an example and uses TF-IDF, LDA topic-modeling, co-occurrence matrix, and BERT sentiment analysis to analyze ChatGPT-related blogs on Weibo from June 1, 2023, to April 1, 2024. This paper explores the public's level of attention, sentiment tendency, and hot topics on Weibo regarding ChatGPT. By analyzing the differences in topics and sentiments of different user categories, the public’s attention to ChatGPT in different regions, and the variation trend of public attitudes and topics, this paper uncovers the evolution of public perception and cognitive differences towards ChatGPT. Studies found that the overall attitude of the public on Weibo towards ChatGPT is relatively positive, but there are still some negative views on its performance in professional fields such as law and ethics. Based on the research results, we suggest government, enterprises, and research institutions in terms of AI application, ethical regulation, and education to promote the healthy development and widespread application of AI technology.