Abstract

In the context of mid-level professional writing jobs, we examine the productivity effects of a generative artificial intelligence technology, namely the assistive chatbot ChatGPT. We used ChatGPT to randomly expose half of the 444 college-educated professionals to occupation-specific, incentive-based writing tasks in a preregistered online experiment. Our results show that ChatGPT considerably increases average productivity: output quality improves by 0.4 standard deviations and task completion time drops by 0.8 standard deviations. By compressing the production distribution, ChatGPT also lessens worker inequality, mainly helping individuals with lesser starting abilities. ChatGPT shifts the focus of activities from rough-drafting to idea generation and editing, thereby replacing worker effort rather than enhancing worker skills. Furthermore, exposure to ChatGPT increases job satisfaction and self-efficacy while also heightening both concerns and excitement about automation technologies.