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Summary
Summary
This book predicts the decline of today's professions and introduces the people and systems that will replace them. In an internet-enhanced 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 technologies - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will place the "practical expertise" of the finest specialists at the fingertips of everyone, often at no or low cost and without face-to-face interaction. 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 their best is enjoyed only by a few. In their place, they propose five new models for producing and distributing expertise in society. The book raises profound policy issues, not least about employment (they envisage a new generation of "open-collared worker") and about control over online expertise (they warn of new "gatekeepers") - in an era when machines become more capable than human beings at most tasks.Based on the authors' in-depth research of more than a dozen professions, and illustrated by numerous examples from each, this is the first book to assess and question the future of the professions in the 21st century.
Author Notes
Professor Richard Susskind OBE is an author, speaker, and independent adviser to international professional firms and national governments. He is President of the Society for Computers and Law, IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute. His numerous books include the best-sellers, The End of Lawyers? (OUP, 2008) and Tomorrow's Lawyers (OUP, 2013), his work has been translated into more than 10 languages, and he has been invited to speak in over 40 countries. Daniel Susskind is a Lecturer in Economics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he teaches and researches, and from where he has two degrees in economics. Previously, he worked for the British Government - in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, in the Policy Unit in 10 Downing Street, and as a Senior Policy Adviser at the Cabinet Office. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University.
Reviews (1)
Choice Review
This book thoughtfully explores the future of professional work and the people who do it. The proclamations that certain professions are dead or dying because of the increasing prevalence of technology have been many and varied. But Richard Susskind, consultant and author, e.g., Tomorrow's Lawyers (2013) and The Future of Law (CH, Jun'97, 34-5916), and Daniel Susskind (economics, Balliol College, Univ. of Oxford, UK) do a good job uniting all the professions and the idea of professionalism under one banner, and they explore what technology has in store for the future of all of them. What the book does best is present the case that professionals should turn inward and examine the true value of their expertise. By defining the underlying assumptions that connect all professions and systematically deconstructing their worth to society at large, the authors craft an intriguing look at a future where professional work is more accessible to the masses and perhaps less valuable. Though it is too broad and unspecific at times, ultimately this book should be shared and discussed among students and all professionals in all different industries. Summing Up: Recommended. All library collections. --Alvin Dantes, Florida International University
Table of Contents
| List of Boxes and Figure | p. xv |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Part I Change | |
| 1 The Grand Bargain | p. 9 |
| 1.1 Everyday conceptions | p. 10 |
| 1.2 The scope of the professions | p. 13 |
| 1.3 Historical context | p. 18 |
| 1.4 The bargain explained | p. 21 |
| 1.5 Theories of the professions | p. 23 |
| 1.6 Four central questions | p. 31 |
| 1.7 Disconcerting problems | p. 33 |
| 1.8 A new mindset | p. 37 |
| 1.9 Some common biases | p. 43 |
| 2 From the Vanguard | p. 46 |
| 2.1 Health | p. 46 |
| 2.2 Education | p. 55 |
| 2.3 Divinity | p. 61 |
| 2.4 Law | p. 66 |
| 2.5 Journalism | p. 71 |
| 2.6 Management consulting | p. 78 |
| 2.7 Tax and audit | p. 84 |
| 2.8 Architecture | p. 94 |
| 3 Patterns across the Professions | p. 101 |
| 3.1 An early challenge | p. 103 |
| 3.2 The end of an era | p. 104 |
| 3.3 Transformation by technology | p. 109 |
| 3.4 Emerging skills and competences | p. 114 |
| 3.5 Professional work reconfigured | p. 119 |
| 3.6 New labour models | p. 123 |
| 3.7 More options for recipients | p. 128 |
| 3.8 Preoccupations of professional firms | p. 134 |
| 3.9 Demystification | p. 140 |
| Part II Theory | |
| 4 Information and Technology | p. 145 |
| 4.1 Information substructure | p. 145 |
| 4.2 Pre-print and print-based communities | p. 147 |
| 4.3 Technology-based Internet society | p. 150 |
| 4.4 Future impact | p. 153 |
| 4.5 Exponential growth in information technology | p. 155 |
| 4.6 Increasingly capable machines | p. 159 |
| 4.7 Increasingly pervasive devices | p. 172 |
| 4.8 Increasingly connected humans | p. 175 |
| 4.9 A fifty-year overview | p. 182 |
| 5 Production and Distribution of Knowledge | p. 188 |
| 5.1 The economic characteristics of knowledge | p. 189 |
| 5.2 Knowledge and the professions | p. 193 |
| 5.3 The evolution of professional work | p. 195 |
| 5.4 The drive towards externalization | p. 202 |
| 5.5 The liberation of expertise: from craft to commons? | p. 210 |
| 5.6 The decomposition of professional work | p. 211 |
| 5.7 Production and distribution of expertise: seven models | p. 215 |
| Part III Implications | |
| 6 Objections and Anxieties | p. 231 |
| 6.1 Trust, reliability, quasi-trust | p. 233 |
| 6.2 The moral limits of markets | p. 239 |
| 6.3 Lost craft | p. 244 |
| 6.4 Personal interaction | p. 248 |
| 6.5 Empathy | p. 251 |
| 6.6 Good work | p. 254 |
| 6.7 Becoming expert | p. 258 |
| 6.8 No future roles | p. 263 |
| 6.9 Three underlying mistakes | p. 267 |
| 7 After the Professions | p. 270 |
| 7.1 Increasingly capable, non-thinking machines | p. 272 |
| 7.2 The need for human beings | p. 277 |
| 7.3 Technological unemployment? | p. 284 |
| 7.4 The impact of technology on professional work | p. 289 |
| 7.5 The question of feasibility | p. 295 |
| Conclusion: What Future Should We Want? | p. 303 |
| Bibliography | p. 309 |
| Index | p. 337 |