Artificial intelligence and the transformation of work: Documentation and metadata

This dataset contains the publicly shareable qualitative research documentation supporting the interdisciplinary study Artificial intelligence and the transformation of work. The study was conducted as a preliminary exploratory investigation serving as a basis for the design and implementation of the institutional research project "From service to empowerment: Critical-theoretical articulation of the library profession’s role in higher education (KRIK)" at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. KRIK examines how contemporary socio-political transformations - particularly digital capitalism, artificial intelligence and the commercialization of higher education - reshape professional identities, knowledge practices and the emancipatory role of academic libraries. Bringing together perspectives from library and information science, critical librarianship, pedagogy and social theory, the KRIK project seeks to develop theoretical and practical models that strengthen libraries’ contribution to epistemic justice, democratic participation and empowerment. Within this broader research agenda, the present study "Artificial intelligence and the transformation of work" explored the social implications of artificial intelligence in the workplace from the perspective of trade unions. It served as an exploratory qualitative foundation for the KRIK project by analysing the effects of artificial intelligence on worker autonomy, identity and working conditions, by extending critical AI and information literacy beyond higher education into the world of work and by developing concepts that will inform subsequent project phases. Future KRIK research will broaden both the participant population and the thematic scope through additional qualitative research conducted with academic librarians and information science students. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, organised around Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects to explore how AI enhances, renders obsolete, retrieves and reverses aspects of work, worker agency and decent work, and the implications this has for conceptualising critical AI literacy and structuring its instruction. Interview and focus group transcripts are not included because participants did not provide informed consent for the archival sharing of complete qualitative records.