  The emergence of generative AI has sparked substantial discussions, with the
potential to have profound impacts on society in all aspects. As emerging
technologies continue to advance, it is imperative to facilitate their proper
integration into society, managing expectations and fear. This paper
investigates users' perceptions of generative AI using 3M posts on Twitter from
January 2019 to March 2023, especially focusing on their occupation and usage.
We find that people across various occupations, not just IT-related ones, show
a strong interest in generative AI. The sentiment toward generative AI is
generally positive, and remarkably, their sentiments are positively correlated
with their exposure to AI. Among occupations, illustrators show exceptionally
negative sentiment mainly due to concerns about the unethical usage of artworks
in constructing AI. People use ChatGPT in diverse ways, and notably the casual
usage in which they "play with" ChatGPT tends to associate with positive
sentiments. After the release of ChatGPT, people's interest in AI in general
has increased dramatically; however, the topic with the most significant
increase and positive sentiment is related to crypto, indicating the
hype-worthy characteristics of generative AI. These findings would offer
valuable lessons for policymaking on the emergence of new technology and also
empirical insights for the considerations of future human-AI symbiosis.
