review of susskind & susskind - how technology is changing the face of the professions - m. b....
TRANSCRIPT
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.