The Social Impact of Generative AI: An Analysis on ChatGPT
Maria T. Baldassarre, Danilo Caivano, Berenice Fernandez Nieto, Domenico Gigante, Azzurra Ragone
TL;DR
The paper addresses how Generative AI, especially ChatGPT, affects society by conducting a systematic literature review that integrates grey and white literature to map perceived benefits, risks, and development trends. It classifies impacts into positive, negative, emerging trends, and areas for improvement, using Atlas.ti coding and visualizations to synthesize findings. The study highlights critical concerns around privacy, bias, disinformation, and regulatory gaps, while also recognizing benefits in education, customer service, and cross-cultural communication. The authors call for policy, regulation, and human-centered design to harness ChatGPT’s potential responsibly, and propose future work including regional regulatory analyses and user surveys to deepen understanding of social impact. This work provides a structured, evidence-based foundation for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to navigate the ethical and societal implications of large language models in real-world contexts.
Abstract
In recent months, the social impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gained considerable public interest, driven by the emergence of Generative AI models, ChatGPT in particular. The rapid development of these models has sparked heated discussions regarding their benefits, limitations, and associated risks. Generative models hold immense promise across multiple domains, such as healthcare, finance, and education, to cite a few, presenting diverse practical applications. Nevertheless, concerns about potential adverse effects have elicited divergent perspectives, ranging from privacy risks to escalating social inequality. This paper adopts a methodology to delve into the societal implications of Generative AI tools, focusing primarily on the case of ChatGPT. It evaluates the potential impact on several social sectors and illustrates the findings of a comprehensive literature review of both positive and negative effects, emerging trends, and areas of opportunity of Generative AI models. This analysis aims to facilitate an in-depth discussion by providing insights that can inspire policy, regulation, and responsible development practices to foster a human-centered AI.