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  • 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
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (139 ratings)
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The Future of the Professions

By: Richard Susskind,Daniel Susskind
Narrated by: John Lee
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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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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

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What listeners say about The Future of the Professions

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Heavy but interesting

Heavy going but full of great insight and analysis. I'd recommend this to those interested in futurology, career advisers, and those who have just started working in the classic professions and want insight into the future of their chosen career paths.

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3 people found this helpful

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  • RB
  • 03-10-18

Good food for thought, unimaginative structurally

Found concepts and challenging the current norms excellent but content is structured in quite repetitive format. Recommend for the ideas but maybe listen to at fast speed :)

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2 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Dreadful couldn’t finish it

Saw one of the authors speak which was okay but the book was too tough to continue beyond the opening drivel and superfluous definitions and parameter setting. Nothing there to hook the reader to keep going

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2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Thought provoking but in sore need of an editor

Good points and a compelling premise but a shocking amount of repetition. The book could be reduced to a third its current length and have more impact by doing so.

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2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting ideas but overly repetitious

This book doesn't lend itself to an audio version due to the large amounts of repetition between chapters. I assume this was done to accommodate readers who read discrete chapters rather than reading the book from start to finish. This book is therefore designed more like a text book than a work of nonfiction. If you have a professional reason to be interested in the topic then the ideas are solid although overly negative. The focus is on the jobs that will be destroyed by digitisation, without giving too much thought to the additional jobs that may be created.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Narration was a bit of a killer. Content good

went over the same point maybe twenty times. Sounded like Stephen Toast but not funny. interesting topic. just about worth it.

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    3 out of 5 stars

More academic than practical

The content of the book is logically laid out and easy to follow. However, I found little value in this book, as I was hoping for a more practical insight into the future of professions. Instead it's a very academic and slightly outdated overview of the professional landscape.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Bizarre voice performance too distracting

Had to stop after a couple of hours pushing through. Voice performance was very odd and couldn’t focus on the content. Thought I’d get used to it but regrettably not.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Narrator is terrible

Yawn - can’t listen to this voice. Too monotone and elitist. Content is good but damn, please drop this voice ASAP

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A good all round investigation

A decent overview of how changes in technology will lead to evolutions in the professions, specifically medicine, education, law and consulting.
One who follows modern publications such as The Economist may be very familiar with the evolving nature of techological transformations, but the strength of this book is the depth and broad-ranging nature of the coverage.
As this is familiar to this reader, the book could seem a little too elaborative at times, but can serve as a decent refresher on a very important subject.
The narration by John Lee is superb, and John Lee is nothing short of one of the best Narrators going.

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