The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts

This book predicts the decline of today’s professions and describes the
people and systems that will replace them. In an Internet society,
according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need
nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy,
consultants, lawyers, and many others, to work as they did in the 20th
century. The Future of the Professions explains how ‘increasingly capable systems’ - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will bring fundamental change in the way that the ‘practical expertise’ of specialists is made available in society. The authors challenge the ‘grand bargain’ - the arrangement that grants
various monopolies to today’s professionals. They argue that our
current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and
that the expertise of the best is enjoyed only by a few. In their
place, they propose six new models for producing and distributing
expertise in society. The book raises important practical and
moral questions. In an era when machines can out-perform human beings at
most tasks, what are the prospects for employment, who should own and
control online expertise, and what tasks should be reserved exclusively for people?Based on the authors’ in-depth research of more than ten professions,
and illustrated by numerous examples from each, this is the first book
to assess and question the relevance of the professions in the 21st
century.