The Trade-Offs of ChatGPT to Filipino Freelance Content Writers: A Diffusion of Innovation Theory Perspective

Abstract

With today’s technology, things we struggled to do before have become much easier to accomplish. Artificial Intelligence (AI), for one, is the latest innovation that has changed the landscape of many industries, most notably the field of content writing. AI language models like ChatGPT have garnered attention for their capacity to generate text resembling human language and engage with user queries. This technology has the potential to alter how content is going to be produced moving forward, and content writers are said to be heavily affected. Using a qualitative approach, this study used the Diffusion of Innovation Theory developed by Everett M. Rogers in 1962 to understand how Filipino freelance content writers adopted the advent of ChatGPT, find out at what stage by which they have adopted it, and know the factors that influence their adoption. Out of five established adopter categories, the content writers were classified into three categories: innovators, early majority, and late majority. Innovators are the writers who tried the innovation first. The early majority, on the other hand, adopt new ideas before the average person. Lastly, the late majority are those who will only adopt after the majority has tried it. The current stage by which the writers are currently on has been identified in the process. All of them considered themselves in the continued use of ChatGPT, and the majority said that they use AI daily for their work, which is already a part of their content writing process. The factors influencing the writers’ adoption of the innovation are relative advantage, compatibility, and observability. ChatGPT has revolutionized how content writers perform their duties and responsibilities. Keywords: Content Writing, Content Writers, ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, Diffusion of Innovation