Abstract
Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind’s recent work, The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts, is a fascinating and very thought-provoking book that closely examines the intersection of rapidly advancing innovative technologies and the shifting nature and transformation of work and the professions. They summarize the central thesis of the book as follows: In the long run, increasingly capable machines will transform the work of professionals, giving rise to new ways of sharing practical expertise in society… we foresee that, in the end, the traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most (but not all) professions to be replaced by less expert people and high-performing systems. (p. 303)
In this superb work, the authors provide a very descriptive, predictive, and normative argument for their prediction of a rapid deterioration in demand for the traditional professions and the conventional professional worker, stating that ‘Increasingly capable systems will bring transformations to professional work that will resemble the impact of industrialisation on traditional craftsmanship’ (p. 2) and that ‘Decades from now, today’s professions will play a much less prominent role in society’ (p. 271). Furthermore, they argue for what they consider to be the inevitability and long overdue decline of the privileged status of the professions and the necessary deregulation and disaggregation of professional tasks, stating, … professional work should be decomposed, that is broken down into constituent ‘tasks’ – identifiable, distinct, and separate modules of work that make it up. Once decomposed, the challenge then is to identify the most efficient way of executing each type of task, constituent with the quality of work needed, the level of human interaction required, and the ease with which the decomposed tasks can be managed alongside one another and pulled together into a coherent offering. (p. 212)
However, despite the predicted decline and transformation of the professions, the authors foresee the rise of other important roles, such as the networked experts, para-professionals, knowledge engineering, communities of experience, embedded knowledge, machine-generated expertise, professional empathizers, and moderators.
Important to their fundamental argument about the importance of the relationship between society and the professions, Susskind and Susskind argue it is our moral obligation to increase access of expert knowledge through the transformation of the professions and supporting institutions and state that their fundamental role ‘… is to provide access to knowledge and experience that non specialists lack’ (p. 268). In fact, they frame this as ‘the grand bargain’, stating, In acknowledgement of and in return for their expertise, experience, and judgement, which they are expected to apply in delivering affordable, accessible, up-to-date, reassuring, and reliable services … we (society) place our trust in the professions in granting them exclusivity over a wide range of socially significant services and activities, by paying them a fair wage, by conferring upon them independence, autonomy, rights of self-determination, and by according them respect and status. (p. 22)
The book is organized into three parts, divided into seven chapters: (1) Part I: Change, (2) Part II: Theory, and (3) Part III: Implications. The first third of the book (including Chapter 1: The Grand Bargain, Chapter 2: From the Vangaurd, and Chapter 3: Patterns across the Professions) focuses on the concept of change, examines the relationship between society and the professions, and provides examples of disruptive innovation in several professions, such as education and healthcare industries. The second third of the book (including Chapter 4: Information and Technology, and Chapter 5: Production and Distribution or Knowledge) is rather dense and focuses on the theory behind technology’s impact on the professions. The final third of the book (including Chapter 6: Objections and Anxieties, and Chapter 7: After the Professions) responds to many of the common fears surrounding rapid technological advancement and examines the far-reaching implications of disruptive technologies on the future of work. Finally, the authors finish with their conclusions and the question, ‘What Future Should We Want?’ While not arguing for immediate change, they do have the conviction that there will be a fundamental transformation, stating ‘We regard the professions as likely to last longer in their current form than most other occupations’ (p. 295) but ‘… we foresee that, in the end, the traditional professions will be dismantled’ (p. 303).
The Future of the Professions distinguishes itself from other related literature in that it is both theoretically grounded and generally accessible to a broad audience (though admittedly dense in parts), as it provides ample readable descriptions of technology, people, and places within a sophisticated theoretical framework. In addition, the subject matter of the book will be of interest to individual readers across the globe, as the issues discussed within the text are very applicable to all national, cultural, and organizational contexts. Finally, this book is intended for organizational leaders and policy practitioners of all stripes interested in the impacts and implications of disruptive technologies on the future of work.