Daniel Susskind is obviously a brilliant guy, he is a Fellow in Economics at Balliol College at Oxford University where he both teaches and researches the impact of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, on work and society. He was also a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University.
Daniel Susskind
Mr. Susskind also worked as a policy advisor in the English Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, and as a policy analyst in the Policy Unit of 10 Downing Street, as well as having served as a senior policy advisor for the Cabinet Office. These are not the credentials of a light-weight.
So when Mr. Susskind co-authors a book with his equally prestigious father, Richard Susskind on 'The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts' the 'experts of the world' had better listen. In his book he discusses the future of the professions, and elaborated thereupon during his keynote presentation at Scaling New Heights (2018) with a special emphasis on accounting professionals.
Susskind sets out two futures for the profession(s) both of which rest on technology. One vision is simply a more efficient version of the way professions pretty much work today.
In terms of accountancy, this future perspective makes use of technology including artificial intelligence,and machine learning to maximize efficiency and productivity. Much of today's 'manual aspects' of accountancy, such as bookkeeping become increasingly automated to the extent that such manual steps are essentially eliminated, and along with them most of the laborers performing that work. While there is change, even significant change associated with this future-model, it's not really dismal for the professional accountant although professional bookkeepers would argue otherwise.
In this future the professions can have less 'automation anxiety' because it is not so much about the professions being replaced by robots and computers as it is about technology making professionals more productive, the machines actually complement the professionals.
Susskind cited one example of this professional amplification as it relates to the medical profession describing a computer which had learned from analysis of nearly 130,000 skin cancer cases and now was equally capable (if not more so) in diagnosing skin cancer from a photograph of a freckle. It's not that the computer is doing something a physician would do in the way a physician would do it, it's that it is interpreting data in a way that no human being could do it. The computer is learning more in less time than any one physician could learn in a lifetime and that gives the computer 'an edge' over the physician, but again even in this instance the 'diagnostic computer' is assisting the physician in making a diagnosis, not making the diagnosis in lieu of the physician.
But Susskind also defines an alternative future path for the professions, one that is far more transformative, and one in which increasingly capable systems based upon artificial intelligence and machine learning gradually replace professionals including accountants. In such a future there will be no need for accountants (nor lawyers, doctors, architects, teachers, consultants or even the clergy).
This second potential future is clearly an outcome in which even professionals rightfully have 'automation anxiety'. The reason is not so much that computers can be trained to do things in the way human professionals do them, even though this is what his father did in reference to English Barristers 40 years ago when he trained a computer to respond to legal circumstances based upon how human lawyers would respond.
No, learning computers of today have excelled far beyond the rudimentary 'coding' requirements of the past, they are developing exponentially by learning everything that is made available to them. While IBM's 'Watson Computer' won Jeopardy against two all-time winners more than 7-years ago, because it had more facts available to it, and thus could identify the correct answers more readily than its human counterparts, it also wasn't playing the game in the same way the humans did. (In a later segment of Scaling New Heights, IBM officials told the audience that Watson won 'out of chance' because it happened to pick a 'daily double' near the end that enabled it to out-wager the competitors.)
The reality is that machines like Watson 'know more', far more than humans, but that doesn't mean that they yet have the ability to truly reason, and they certainly are limited on their ability to interact. Even with that said, Susskind believes that in the long run the overall progression of technology favors 'the machines', and that they will supplant humans, even professionals in many areas of today's economy.
Murph's Takeaway (aka: an editorial opinion)
As I began this article, Daniel Susskind is obviously a brilliant man, but that doesn't mean that we have to agree with him. I must take exception to his belief that the technology of the machines will supplant (human) professionals.
If that occurs it will be because we 'humans' have not done our jobs, and have not clearly differentiated that which makes us 'human' despite the 'advanced state of the machines.' It is as if some people want to equate the take over of artificial intelligence and computerized professions to the demise of the 'buggy-whip.'
Buggy-whips were used to prod horses harnessed to carriages and wagons, but when the automobile began to appear in the late 19th century, horse drawn wagons and carriages became almost non-existent, and with them came the demise of the 'buggy whip' manufacturers. Nobody needed a $1 buggy-whip any longer with which to prod their horses because nobody used horse-drawn carriages or wagons. It was actually a Harvard Business School professor by the name of Theodore Levitt who first wrote in 1960 about the plight of buggy-whip makers.
But the reality is that 'buggy-whips' and buggy-whip makers never did really die off, you can still today find 'buggy-whips', and they cost from a few-hundred to several-hundred dollars each. Yes that 's what I said, a once $1.00 buggy-whip may cost you $500 in today's 'limited supply' market. Obviously when Daniel Raff, an associate professor of management at the prestigious 'Wharton School of Business' referred to 'the buggy-whip' analogy as "an obscurity sitting on an anachronism" he must not have been aware that the law of supply & demand was still in force when it comes to buggy-whips.
So too I believe it will be for 'the professionals' who transcend the evolutionary-curve of the machine domination of humanity by insuring that 'humanity dominates the professions.' The value of true professionals will always outweigh the economics of scale that bring about automation-based artificially-intelligent (or unintelligent) work.
Back in 1961 the term 'Audio-Animatronics' was first used by a Walt Disney employee by the name of Lee Adams, the term was later trademarked by Disney in 1964, and became a registered trademark of Disney in 1967. The first 'audio-animatronics' were associated with an artificial bird to become the lead character in Disney's 'Enchanted Tiki Room' attraction. Later the technology, driven first by pneumatic actuators, hydraulics, and servo-motors controlled from signals recorded on a tape would be used to create such attractions as 'Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln' and 'It's a Small World'. As the demand for these robotic-attractions grew the creativity and innovation behind them led to computerized controllers and miniaturized components along with enhanced 'life like' qualities for both human-like and animal-like figures.
Regardless of how 'real' some of the attraction characters appeared, nobody every mistakenly thought of them as 'real people' or 'animals'. Despite the fact that 'Mr. Lincoln' could recite the Gettysburg Address perfectly, dozens of times per day, far better than most High School Seniors, nobody thought Abraham Lincoln had 'risen from the dead' and was appearing at Disney.
Recently, a television remake of an old movie 'Westworld' portrays robots getting so 'uppity' that they decide to not only take over the theme-park (as in the original movie) and kill off the humans, but to actually venture out into the 'human world' to take over everything. The creators of this series also interjected man's attempt to extend their own lives by incorporating 'their human essence in the form of their entire mind's contents' into the host bodies of robots who they called 'hosts' from the start. The implication was that they were there to 'host' visitors, when the intention was they become the 'host' for visitors.
Of course this television series had 'robots' being portrayed by humans rather than humans being portrayed by robots. (Exactly as the original movie did.) But nobody watching this made for television remake left their sets believing that the robots were actually taking over the world, no matter how real they looked (because they were real people).
About now you are saying, 'what's your point Murph?' My point is that Susskind contends that it is OK for robots/computers to do what humans do, but to do it entirely differently, and that makes them better at doing it. They are faster, smarter, and 'error free'. Machines have come a long way since that first 'Enchanted-Tiki Bird', and even the portrayal of the first super-computer, HAL 9000 in 2001 A Space Oddesey. Do you remember how HAL described itself?
"No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."
But let us not forget that 'Hal' went nuts and started killing off humans exactly like the 'hosts' (robots) in the Westworld movie and TV show.
Such portrayals of technology are intended to give 'us humans' a certain amount of what Susskind termed, "Automation Anxiety". But again, no matter how fast, smart or 'error free' the machines become, they are NOT becoming 'human', and that is my point.
The real secret to being a 'professional' is not being fast, smart or even error free in your professional responsibilities since we recognize that nobody is in fact all of these things, even if we hope and expect professionals to be 'error free'. We realize they are not, nobody is perfect.
No, the real 'professional' quality is how 'human the individual is' in dealing with other humans. Physicians who have 'poor bedside manner' typically end up in medical research, not in patient care. Even surgeons, once tolerated for being 'so technical with limited interaction skills' are today expected to demonstrate their professionalism as one human to another.
When it comes to lawyers, the HAL-9000 or Watson may know more 'case law' and 'court decisions' than any lawyer on earth, but when it comes to arguing your defense in front of a 'jury of your peers' (other humans) do you want a robot, no matter how lifelike, but with lifeless eyes, trying to convince the jury not to give you life in prison or lethal injection? I don't think (believe) so. Most 'jury experts' will tell you that it is how a jury relates to the lawyers in the case that determines the outcome of the trial.
How about the 'clergy'? Can you really hear a computerized voice reading the eulogy of your loved one, or a robot preaching a sermon on the 'deadly sins'? How can such non-human entities ever express the humanity of grief at the time of loss, or hurt, or fear? Where is 'the humanity' in a machine when your own 'humanity' is being challenged?
And then there are those Accountants reading this...wondering if their days are numbered because the machines can out think, out compute, and out figure them in record speed. While people may come to 'trust their computer' for the number crunching, and rudimentary interpretations...are they really going to give up that gut feeling of a professional Accountant who has seen it and lived it with other clients, and who is there to mentor them through the difficult times?
Do you want a robot holding your hand when you head to bankruptcy court, or the IRS is auditing your books, or do you want a 'living breathing Accountant?" My answer is 100% human accountant please!
While smart-phones, text messaging, voice-mail, Siri, and such seem to be reducing our 'human-to-human' interaction every day, I believe that humans will not only want, but expect and demand 'humanism' from all of their professionals, no matter what the profession.
Accordingly, our challenge as humans will be to realize that 'no matter how real the machine seems' (like Disney's, Audio-Animatronic, Mr. Lincoln), or even 'how human' (like the hosts of Westworld) we must recognize that they are NOT human, they are only machines.
That means, our job as a professional is to be the 'most professional' human we can be, and more importantly the 'most human' professional we can be. Therein lies the key to not only our survival, but our success.
Then we, like the buggy-whips, will be more valuable than ever.