Mapping Public Sentiment on Generative AI via Twitter NLP and Topic Modeling*

Abstract: The rapid diffusion of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has intensified public debate regarding its benefits, risks, and societal implications. This study investigates public sentiment and thematic structures surrounding Generative AI by analyzing Twitter discourse as a representation of large-scale, real-time public perception. The research addresses two main problems: how public sentiment toward Generative AI is distributed and what dominant themes shape this perception. Accordingly, the objective is to map both emotional polarity and thematic narratives embedded in social media conversations. A computational mixed-methods approach was employed using a dataset of 12,470 tweets collected on 17 December 2024. Sentiment classification was conducted using a transformer-based DistilBERT model, while semantic representations were generated with Sentence-BERT. Topic modeling was performed using BERTopic, integrating HDBSCAN clustering and class-based TF-IDF to extract coherent and interpretable topics. Human-in-the-loop validation supported the interpretive robustness of topic labeling. The findings reveal that public sentiment toward Generative AI is predominantly positive (41.8%), particularly in relation to productivity enhancement, education, and creative applications. Neutral sentiment (31.4%) reflects informational discourse, while negative sentiment (26.8%) centers on ethical concerns, privacy risks, misinformation, and AI hallucinations. Seven dominant topics were identified, with clear topic–sentiment alignment showing optimism in utility-driven themes and skepticism in ethics- and risk-related discussions. In conclusion, public perception of Generative AI is dualistic—characterized by strong enthusiasm alongside persistent caution. These results provide empirical insights for AI governance, responsible innovation, and future research on socio-technical impacts of Generative AI. *