ChatGPT and Stress

Abstract

ChatGPT is an artificial-intelligence chatbot. In addition to comprehending an image like a text prompt, it can understand complex prompts and exhibit human-level performance. It became the fastest-growing application in history, acquiring one million users within five days of release. However, despite its potential to improve productivity, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and wages, it causes stress to individuals. This study examines the relationship between stress and ChatGPT in Thailand. Although stress is a severe health problem in the country, ChatGPT cannot be avoided as this application helps support the country’s targeted digital technology industry. The study uses a proxy for unobserved stress levels and ChatGPT concerns using Google’s search volume indexes. Based on daily samples from December 10, 2015, to May 31, 2023, regression analysis revealed that ChatGPT significantly increased stress levels. However, during the development sub-sample, the stress level decreased. Stress escalated in the early- and viral-use sub-samples, where the effect for the viral-use sub-sample was significantly higher. In the COVID-19 pandemic sub-sample, the effect was non-significant. The causality of ChatGPT in stress was confirmed by the contemporaneous-causality test.