AI Exposure and Strategic Positioning on an Online Work Platform

Abstract

AI technologies have the potential to affect labor market outcomes by both increasing worker productivity and reducing the demand for certain skills or tasks. Such changes may have important implications for the ways in which workers seek jobs and position themselves. In this project, we examine how exposure to generative AI technologies affects the strategic behavior of freelancer workers on an online work platform following the launch of ChatGPT in December 2022. Relative to their less exposed counterparts, we show that freelancers that are more exposed to language modeling technologies apply for more job posts on the platform following the launch of ChatGPT and increase the concentration of these applications across specializations. We document heterogeneity in this effect across freelancer characteristics and consider how such behaviors shape whether and to what extent the technological shock affects freelancer performance on the platform.