AI and the Dispersion of Expertise

One of the issues raised by the development of conversational AIs - which might more accurately be described as centralized banks of knowledge and expertise - is that they contradict the mechanism of expertise dispersion within society.

Today, if you have a legal problem, you can consult a lawyer who has spent many years developing a specific expertise and who will help you resolve the issue.

Since there is more than one lawyer offering such services, on the one hand, you have a choice among a diversity of individuals and therefore of areas of expertise. But more importantly, from a sociological perspective, legal expertise is dispersed throughout society (even though some law firms do centralize certain specializations and acquire dominant positions in the legal expertise market).

Sociologically, legal expertise exists redundantly within society through the practice of a multitude of lawyers, judges, legal assistants, and jurists. This is also true for other types of expertise (economic, accounting, medical, etc.).

This dispersion is one of the foundations of how our societies function, both organizationally and democratically. This mechanism of expertise dispersion (or specialization of individuals) is also often at the heart of how we build our social identities (we define ourselves as lawyers, nurses, teachers, nutritionists, travel agents, etc.). It also plays a central role in how we organize the symbolic and economic hierarchies that structure society.

The dispersion of expertise is a core organizational principle of our societies and of our lives as individuals.

The promise of centralized banks of knowledge and expertise (aka conversational AIs) is to offer a digital one-stop shop (currently owned by a private company often based in California) for the consultation of all kinds of expertise, by everyone, in all societies. An expertise that, moreover, instantly adapts to our individual specificities based on previously collected data about our preferences, behaviors, and opinions.

Note: This text is an atomated translation of the French version of the text found here.

Mon nom est Grégoire Lits. Je suis sociologue des médias à l'UCLouvain où je dirige l'Observatoire de recherche sur les médias et le journalisme (ORM). Je poste sur ce blog des billets au sujet des recherches que je mène et qui portent principalement sur la circulation de l'information dans la société en période de crise, mais aussi sur d'autres sujets en lien avec l'évolution et la place des médias d'information dans la société.

If the use of centralized knowledge and expertise banks were to become widespread, our societies could be profoundly reconfigured, since the principle of centralization of expertise that underpins them is opposed to the principle of dispersion that currently governs our collective functioning.