The Future of the Professions

How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts

By: Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

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 by only 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 outperform 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 10 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.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2015 Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Kind of Boring Unfortunately

I believe that the entire book could be wrapped up in a 15 page article. While the authors offer some really interesting points, the book is fairly repetitive and wordy.

I Hope It's Not All True

As a professional (lawyer), this is a rather depressing book. It certainly suggests that the best days of true professionals are in the rearview mirror and that the future will be dominated by software, paraprofessionals, "McLawyers" and "McDoctors." I'm afraid there probably is a lot of truth in it. Despite an ever-increasing number of laws and regulations, the legal business has never recovered from the Great Recession. Work is down, except possibly at the mega-firms, and most firms are working hard just to tread water. Some of this is due to legal innovations, such as mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution, some is due to client attitudes (since they made due without legal review in the Great Recession, they seem more willing to take their chances with legal risks), and a great deal is due to technology (computerized document review, etc.). I see these trends continuing, and am somewhat glad I am nearer the end of my career than the beginning.

Although the authors put forward a compelling--albeit somewhat obvious--case about technology, their work itself is far from compelling. For one thing, lumping "professions" together is not completely logical. There is is a huge difference between teachers, clergy, accountants, lawyers and doctors. Some might question calling some of these vocations professions. It would have been far more compelling, for example, to address each profession or vocation individually. Although law and accounting have some similarities, the others do not. For example, medicine is definitely a profession, but it is (a) something everyone needs somewhat regularly (in contrast, many never need a lawyer or an accountant) and (b) hugely affected by government or private insurance (depending on the country). The latter is true of no other profession.

Another weakness of the book is that is has no answers for those practicing, or wanting to practice, law, accounting or medicine. Probably the message is "find something else to do," but that is not particularly helpful and is certainly not satisfying.

The over the top British narration was also a little off-putting, at least to me.

If I had to do it over again, I would pass on this one.

Audio quality deteriorates

With every subsequent play the audio quality is worse than the previous listen. By a fifth play I cannot understand the reader. This has been my experience with every audio book I've purchased from Audible. Sounds like Stephen Hawking's vocalization software running on a Commadore 64.

could have been much shorter in length

Best suited for academic audience. Not so great for general populatiion who is curious about the future of the professions.

Attempt at sketching a history of the 21st century

I came to this book personally out of my interest in the digital humanities. People who study DH may find it worthwhile to read this book. Likewise, people who read this book and like it may find it worthwhile to read about the digital humanities.

The Susskinds explain how economic and cultural history thus far has led to the current professional structure of Western society. They speculate that technological advances will ultimately challenge the sorts of exclusive claims to knowledge and expertise that the professions are based on. They imagine a new world where the professional economy as we know it no longer exists because computers will have taken responsibility for a significant number of tasks that humans now do.

The Susskinds offer guidance for how people can adapt and write themselves into this new, technology-intensive future. They call upon traditional economic ideas like the Tragedy of the Commons and Rawls’ veil of ignorance to explain how traditional reasoning strategies may be applicable to navigating or charting the human factor into tomorrow’s technological future.

They respond, throughout, to anticipated rebuttals to their arguments. For example, in response to the claim that artificial intelligence will not be able replicate human patterns of thinking, they say that it is a logical fallacy to believe that AI must replicate human cognition in order to be effective. The Susskinds urge us to imagine and accept the possibility that artificial intelligence is of a different order than human intelligence and that AI may be capable of arriving at the same end result as a human (or a better result) through an entirely different thought process than what the human may pursue.

This is a great read for anyone interested in thinking critically about the future.

A real eye opener for a 20th century lawyer

I came across this book while making a presentation for my law colleagues where I was to speak about the future of law and AI. This book changed my view and I am now much more pessimistic about the profession as lawyer 30 years down the road! Richard Susskind gives really interesting perspectives. Reccomended for lawyers wanting to look to the future.

A Focused Look at a Topic Out of Focus

The thing that struck me about this book was the way the authors carefully reiterated the thrust of their argument at relevant times throughout the book. This care to be fair and reasoned is appreciated. It is through no fault of the authors that the topic is a bit out of focus. Any book like this attempting to peak into the future will be struggling with that problem. What separates this book is the authors' ready acknowledgement that they are "way over their skis on this one" but they maintain their willingness to go there anyway (while reminding us of the limitations of their thesis). I got the impression that they do this because the information they have uncovered and are sharing compels them to try. And, as they point out at the end of the book, the human stakes are high.

British Elitist View of 'Professions'

This book is very thorough and scholarly, but it is talking about the British idea of 'Professions' versus the North American view. So, if you're interested in a thorough tuition on the subject of Professions occupied by those who went to 'Public' School, listen indeed. Indubitably.

Interesting perspectives from an in-depth study

The book is an in-depth study into the nature. present issues and future of the professions. There are a number of interesting perspectives, although it's a bit too academic in approach and long winded. A higher dose of practicality and more specific picture of the future would have earn it another star.

Book references not needed

Constant change in tempo when referencing book notes. Annoying and not necessary.

Can’t reference notes easily anyway.