Iranian Twitter Users' Public Perception of Artificial Intelligence: A Thematic Analysis of Tweets Regarding ChatGPT

In recent years, artificial intelligence has had a significant impact on the digital realm. This study aims to conduct an exploratory and qualitative analysis by examining user-generated opinions on Twitter regarding ChatGPT to understand the public perception of artificial intelligence. To achieve this, posts and comments from Twitter were reviewed. The study encompasses at least one hundred opinions that were carefully evaluated and selected to represent a diverse range of user perspectives. These opinions were analyzed in an exploratory and unrestricted manner to uncover the various aspects of public perception surrounding artificial intelligence. In this study, we took an exploratory approach to collect data from posts and comments of Iranian users on Twitter. Among the nearly a thousand posts and comments we collected in the first phase, we identified nearly 100 posts and comments that exemplify 18 themes in our data. By categorizing these themes, we could name two main categories that portray Iranian public perceptions of AI, especially Chatgpt. The first one is positive, which consists of opportunities, capacities, and capabilities themes, and the second one is challenges, concerns, and limitations of AI and ChatGPT. The first wing has themes such as "Humanistic communications of AI," "Artificial intelligence and problem-solving," "No bias in discussion with chatgpt," "AI and Productivity," "AI and daily work routines," "AI as a writing assistant," "Artificial intelligence human emotions," "Artificial intelligence as a teacher" and "Helping jobs to reduce errors." The second wing, Negative: Challenges, Concerns, and Limitations is comprised of "Unknown Future Challenges Using AI," "Hyped AI," "Monetization and Monopolization of Artificial Intelligence," "Cheating Artificial Intelligence," "Privacy Violation by AI," "Invalid and Unreliable Information," "Unintelligent and Untrained Intelligence," "Ideological Surveillance," and "Substitution for Human Labor."