The “Old” Issues of the “New” Artificial Intelligence Systems in Professional Activities

Based on scientific and “gray” literature as well as exploratory fieldwork, this chapter discusses several types of issues and questions raised by the “new” Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in relation to work. It describes the different functionalities and the envisaged or potential uses of these systems in work situations. The chapter presents an overview (synthetic and non‐exhaustive) of systems based on machine learning algorithms. A lot of professional sectors are concerned by the diffusion of AI systems: industry, defense and security, justice, education, health, customer relations, finance, transport, environment, agriculture, human resources, etc. The unprecedented performance and scope of the “new” AI systems in a growing number of professional activity sectors have led us to address the issues raised by the introduction of these technologies in work situations. At present, these issues are being addressed more from an economic or technical point of view, whether by private companies or public institutions.