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.

翻译：生成式AI的出现引发了大量讨论，其可能对社会各层面产生深远影响。随着新兴技术的持续发展，促进其与社会体系的恰当融合、管理公众期望与焦虑变得至关重要。本文基于2019年1月至2023年3月期间Twitter上的300万条帖子，重点聚焦用户职业与使用情况，探究公众对生成式AI的认知。研究发现，包括非IT相关职业在内的各行业人士均对生成式AI表现出浓厚兴趣。公众对生成式AI的整体情感倾向积极，且其情感态度与AI接触程度呈显著正相关。在职业群体中，插画师展现出的负面情感尤为突出，主要源于对AI构建中艺术作品被不当使用的担忧。用户对ChatGPT的使用方式呈现多元化特征，其中以"玩耍"为目的的休闲使用模式往往与积极情感相关联。自ChatGPT发布后，公众对AI的整体关注度急剧上升，但话题增长幅度最大且情感最积极的领域却与加密货币相关，这揭示了生成式AI易引发炒作的特质。这些发现将为新兴技术相关政策的制定提供重要启示，并为未来人机共生关系的思考提供实证依据。