Who Is AI Replacing? The Impact of Generative AI on Online Freelancing Platforms
利用全球自由职业平台的大数据，发现ChatGPT等生成式AI使写作和编程类岗位数量在8个月内下降21%，图像生成类下降17%，同时加剧了自由职业者竞争，但剩余岗位更复杂且薪酬更高。
This paper studies the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on the demand for online freelancers using a large data set from a leading global freelancing platform. We identify the types of jobs that are more affected by generative AI and quantify the magnitude of the heterogeneous impact. Our findings indicate a 21% decrease in the number of job posts for automation-prone jobs related to writing and coding compared with jobs requiring manual-intensive skills within eight months after the introduction of ChatGPT. We show that the reduction in the number of job posts increases competition among freelancers, whereas the remaining automation-prone jobs are of greater complexity and offer higher pay. We also find that the introduction of image-generating AI technologies led to a 17% decrease in the number of job posts related to image creation. We use Google Trends to show that the more pronounced decline in the demand for freelancers within automation-prone jobs correlates with their higher public awareness of ChatGPT’s substitutability. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing. Supplemental Material: The online appendices and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.05420 .