A Worldwide Bibliometric Analysis of Publications on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics in the Past Seven Decades

Abstract

Issues related to artificial intelligence (AI) and ethics have gained much traction worldwide. The impact of AI on society has been extensively discussed. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of research results, citation relationships among researchers, and highly referenced journals on AI and ethics on a global scale. Papers published on AI and ethics were recovered from the Microsoft Academic Graph Collection data set, and the subject terms included “artificial intelligence” and “ethics.” With 66 nations’ researchers contributing to AI and ethics research, 1585 papers on AI and ethics were recovered, up to 5 July 2021. North America, Western Europe, and East Asia were the regions with the highest productivity. The top ten nations produced about 94.37% of the wide variety of papers. The United States accounted for 47.59% (286 articles) of all papers. Switzerland had the highest research production with a million-person ratio (1.39) when adjusted for populace size. It was followed by the Netherlands (1.26) and the United Kingdom (1.19). The most productive authors were found to be Khatib, O. (n = 10), Verner, I. (n = 9), Bekey, G. A. (n = 7), Gennert, M. A. (n = 7), and Chatila, R., (n = 7). Current research shows that research on artificial intelligence and ethics has evolved dramatically over the past 70 years. Moreover, the United States is more involved with AI and ethics research than developing or emerging countries.