"If the Machine Is As Good As Me, Then What Use Am I?" - How the Use of ChatGPT Changes Young Professionals' Perception of Productivity and Accomplishment

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have been widely adopted in work contexts. We explore the impact of ChatGPT on young professionals’ perception of productivity and sense of accomplishment. We collected LLMs’ main use cases in knowledge work through a preliminary study, which served as the basis for a two-week diary study with 21 young professionals reflecting on their ChatGPT use. Findings indicate that ChatGPT enhanced some participants’ perceptions of productivity and accomplishment by enabling greater creative output and satisfaction from efficient tool utilization. Others experienced decreased perceived productivity and accomplishment, driven by a diminished sense of ownership, perceived lack of challenge, and mediocre results. We found that the suitability of task delegation to ChatGPT varies strongly depending on the task nature. It’s especially suitable for comprehending broad subject domains, generating creative solutions, and uncovering new information. It’s less suitable for research tasks due to hallucinations, which necessitate extensive validation.