How Technology is Changing the Face of the

Professions: The Functional and Acquisitive Society

Review of Susskind, R., & Susskind, D. (2015). The

Future of the Professions: How Technology will

Transform the Work of Human Experts – Oxford

University Press, UK.

Online Business Review – Infolite, February 2016

Michelle B. Cowley – Royal Statistical Society Fellow

For digital marketing executives looking for an up to date synopsis on how

digital technologies are changing the face of the professions, a new insightful gem ‘The

Future of the Professions: How Technology will Transform the Work of Human Experts’

thesis is now available by Oxford University Press (Susskind & Susskind, 2015). A

beautifully concise and wonderfully sourced sociological, as well as technological thesis, the

argument is made that the professions, such as law, teaching, medicine, banking and so on,

are largely becoming destabilized due to the increasing role of technological automaticity in

professional systems rendering human professional expertise redundant.

In their thesis, father and son team, Richard and Daniel Susskind, reflect on the

‘Grand Bargain’ – the notion that in exchange for their extraordinary knowledge

and technical precision, monetary return and a mandate for social control, and autonomy, is

afforded to the professional by society. Moreover, society affords the professional the

power relations to decide- whom shall bear the voice of professional authority in return for

professional service. The central utility in this bargain is that there is an aspect to being a

professional that is instilled with pride in service rather than simply monetary return. Thus a

‘functional’ society as opposed to a merely ‘acquisitive’ one is borne by the skills and efforts

of the professional middle-classes and their bargain with us.

Yet recent technological advances such as social media networks, e-commerce,

eHealth technologies, and interface knowledge e-libraries are becoming increasingly

disruptive and radically economizing to the human systems chain in professional service

procurement. In law chambers, for example, online interactional systems will dictate that

clients themselves complete the data-entry, document copy, and content submissions,

dispensing with traditional clerk systems and pay per inventory. Cloud computing storage

reliabilities will enable secure release of cataloguing from in-house law firms to outsourced

private computing legal services.

Susskind & Susskind (2015) argue then that with this increased mechanization, there

are increased organic systems losses. In other words while industrialization leads to

professionalization, so too does it lead to a re-organization of the division of professional

labor, perhaps eroding the ‘whole length of the social fabric, the threads of which have

become so loose… than drawn together and strengthened’ (Durkheim, cited in Susskind &

Susskind, 2015, p. 25). The decline of the sole standing worker, in this case the

professional, and the rise of the highly specialized corporate employee, in this case the legal

specialist has begun. On a positive note, Susskind and Susskind (2015) do assess that

processes of hyper-mediation within the traditional systems will mean that high-end

specialists will become the professional norm for society as consumer, even though the

positive guild values of collegiality will be no more. While the professions lose out, society

will gain.

So then can we expect extraordinary levels of service, and moreover expect future

roles to be created to compensate both society and the professionals’ loss of collegiality with

human-specific interpersonal skills, in job roles reflective of what Susskind and Susskind

(2015) refer to in symbolic titles such as the Para-professional, the Empathizer, the

Knowledge Engineer in their stead? Let us hope so – because there are distinct advocacy

skills that technological and computerized systems cannot yet master, unless documented

market saturation point for the professions is fast approaching!

Michelle B. Cowley DipStat DPhil RSS (2012), Feb 7th 2016.

References

Katz, D. M. (2015). Once regarded as safe havens, the professions are now in the eye of the

storm. The Economist, Computational Legal Studies, Dec 27, 2015.

Susskind, R., & Susskind, D. (2015). The Future of the Professions: How Technology will

Transform the Work of Human Experts. Oxford University Press, UK.