Artificial Intelligence and employment: a systematic review

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic literature review, grounded on bibliometric
procedures, of the (political economy) works, produced from 2008 to 2020, on the relations
between Artificial Intelligence and employment. It detects a growing tendency of published
papers in this field, especially from 2019, and identifies four main groups of concerns on
this topic. Within these groups, a prevalence of more optimistic over skeptical accounts
and, especially, of economic orthodox over heterodox approaches on the issue can be noted.
Overall, it is possible to understand that both the reviewed works and their metrics are quite
dispersed and varied in scope. Among other reasons, this is due to the lack of a common
basic definition, within the field, of AI in the first place.

JEL Classification: J21; O33; P16.