---
title: "AI ethics research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “AI ethics” appeared in 816 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (444), information systems (127) and management (113)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/ai-ethics
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/ai-ethics.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “AI ethics” appeared in 816 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (444), information systems (127) and management (113). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “AI ethics”

Research on “AI ethics” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “AI ethics” appeared in 816 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (444), information systems (127) and management (113).
- 221 of them were published in 2025, against 10 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were University of Oxford (13), Delft University of Technology (7) and Education University of Hong Kong (7).
- The journals publishing most of them were AI & Society (245), Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence (38) and Ethics and Information Technology (33).
- The most-cited of them is “Opinion Paper: “So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy” (International Journal of Information Management, 2023), with 4,592 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 9 | 6 | 11 | 32 | 35 | 55 | 38 | 64 | 113 | 81 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 18 | 14 | 17 | 17 | 32 | 17 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 12 | 6 | 20 | 31 | 32 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 17 | 19 | 23 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 10 | 13 | 18 | 47 | 61 | 83 | 69 | 127 | 221 | 167 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 245 |
| 2 | [Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-and-education-artificial-intelligence.md) | 38 |
| 3 | [Ethics and Information Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ethics-and-information-technology.md) | 33 |
| 4 | [Journal of Innovation & Knowledge](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-innovation-knowledge.md) | 14 |
| 5 | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 13 |
| 6 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 12 |
| 7 | [Journal of Business Ethics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-ethics.md) | 12 |
| 8 | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 10 |
| 9 | [Nature Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/nature-machine-intelligence.md) | 10 |
| 10 | [Information Systems Frontiers](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-systems-frontiers.md) | 9 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [University of Oxford](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-oxford.md) | 13 |
| 2 | [Delft University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/delft-university-of-technology.md) | 7 |
| 3 | [Education University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/education-university-of-hong-kong.md) | 7 |
| 4 | [Technical University of Munich](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/technical-university-of-munich.md) | 7 |
| 5 | [University of Bologna](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-bologna.md) | 7 |
| 6 | [University of Sheffield](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-sheffield.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 6 |
| 8 | [The University of Melbourne](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/the-university-of-melbourne.md) | 6 |
| 9 | [University of Cambridge](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-cambridge.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-hong-kong.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 116 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 91 |
| 3 | Germany | 51 |
| 4 | China | 50 |
| 5 | Australia | 45 |
| 6 | Netherlands | 34 |
| 7 | India | 33 |
| 8 | Italy | 33 |
| 9 | Spain | 26 |
| 10 | Hong Kong | 25 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [generative AI](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/generative-ai.md) | 91 |
| 2 | AI governance | 86 |
| 3 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 71 |
| 4 | algorithmic bias | 59 |
| 5 | [large language models](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/large-language-models.md) | 52 |
| 6 | AI regulation | 47 |
| 7 | [ChatGPT](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chatgpt.md) | 41 |
| 8 | [transparency](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/transparency.md) | 37 |
| 9 | accountability | 35 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4,592 | 104.9 | [Opinion Paper: “So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2023.102642) | [International Journal of Information Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-information-management.md) | 2023-03-11 | Yogesh Kumar Dwivedi, Nir Kshetri, Laurie Hughes et al. |
| 2 | 2,863 | 33.8 | [How artificial intelligence will change the future of marketing](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00696-0) | [Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-the-academy-of-marketing-science.md) | 2019-10-10 | Thomas H. Davenport, Abhijit Guha, Dhruv Grewal et al. |
| 3 | 2,525 | 63.7 | [Students’ voices on generative AI: perceptions, benefits, and challenges in higher education](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00411-8) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2023-07-16 | Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan, Wenjie Hu |
| 4 | 2,204 | 31.5 | [Conceptualizing AI literacy: An exploratory review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100041) | [Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-and-education-artificial-intelligence.md) | 2021-01-01 | Davy Tsz Kit Ng, Jac Ka Lok Leung, Samuel Kai Wah Chu et al. |
| 5 | 1,872 | 22.3 | [Principles alone cannot guarantee ethical AI](https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0114-4) | [Nature Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/nature-machine-intelligence.md) | 2019-11-04 | Brent Mittelstadt |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “AI ethics”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/ai-ethics

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-ai-ethics,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “AI ethics”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/ai-ethics}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).