Editors’ Note: Introduction to the Thematic Issue on Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Platform Labour

By increasing the number of social and industrial applications of big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Algorithmic Management (AM) technologies have become increasingly important for Digital Transformation.AI and ML have become an integral part of our life, the cognitive work system and its broader social or organisational context.Multi-disciplinary research into AI and ML, along with convincing empirical evidence, is essential for it to be understandable, useable, and useful.The scope of explainable AI (XAI) is very broad, encompassing diverse technical methods, theories of explainability and understanding, philosophical perspectives, ethical considerations, legal issues, human-centred evaluations, and applications.These involve many different fields, including but not limited to computer science and informatics, legal studies, cognitive science/psychology, sociology and political sciences.This special issue aims to provide a common forum to bring these different perspectives together for the benefit of the international research community.The essays in this special issue deal with an extremely rapidly growing field of studies, highlighting the contributions of AI, ML and AM technologies to both social and energy sciences, as well as providing legal perspectives on AI regulation and especially on the variety of labour platforms. 11 The number of online web-based (e.g.Upwork, Topcoder) and location-based (e.g.Uber, Foodora) platforms rose from 142 to over 777 in 2020.ILO (2021): The Role of Digital Labour Platforms in Transforming the World of Work, 19, see: https://www.ilo.org/publications/flagship-reports/role-digital-labour-platformstransforming-world-work