It can be unnerving for an accomplished professional to realize that AI can do the job that they’ve done for decades.
Richard Susskind, the Oxford professor and legal technology pioneer who has spent thirty years predicting the digital transformation of law, experienced this unsettling moment firsthand when he encountered GPT-4’s writing capabilities. The author of influential works like “The End of Lawyers?” and “The Future of Law” found himself confronting the very disruption he had long forecast—but this time, it was personal.
Susskind’s revelation began with what seemed like a routine experiment. “I went to ChatGPT and said, could you please draft 800 words on the impact of AI on the legal profession, in the words of, and based on the research of Richard Susskind,” he recounted. His initial reaction was predictably dismissive: “I look at what comes up and as we all do quite always, slightly dismissive—well that’s okay, but it’s not nearly as good as the real thing was my initial reaction.”
But six months later, when he tried the same experiment with GPT-4, something had fundamentally changed. “I looked on screen at its response to me, and for the first time, a shiver ran up my spine because this really could have been a first draft by me,” Susskind admitted. The moment forced a profound realization: “I reflected that day, as our machines are becoming increasingly capable, by the time we get at least conceptually to GPT-6, there’ll be no need for me to be writing columns in The Times.”
The implications stretched far beyond his own career. Susskind envisioned a future where individual expertise might seem quaint: “We’ll probably look back on it and think it’s rather ridiculous that one person writes about an issue. Why wouldn’t you write a column on the future of AI and law based on the work of the top 50 people in the country, and write it in the style of Martin Amis, a proper author rather than me. There’s all sorts of ways you could imagine it being better.”
Yet this technological awakening came with a sobering business lesson. “My mind was opened up, but at the same time I thought that this is a lesson for all of us in any form of business. I think the market will show no loyalty to our traditional ways of working. If AI systems can produce an outcome, an output that is quicker, cheaper, better, and so forth,” he observed.
The experience left Susskind embodying the very contradiction at the heart of the AI revolution: “I felt at once inspired, but also unsettled, again, reflecting this tension we find in the world of AI.”
Susskind’s experience reflects a broader pattern emerging across knowledge work. Legal professionals are already seeing AI tools handle document review, contract analysis, and legal research with increasing sophistication. Major law firms are integrating AI assistants, while legal tech companies report exponential growth in AI-powered services. The same disruption is rippling through journalism, consulting, financial analysis, and other fields where expertise was once considered irreplaceable.
What makes Susskind’s account particularly striking is that it comes from someone who has spent decades studying and predicting exactly this transformation. If even the experts in technological disruption can be caught off-guard by its personal implications, it suggests we may all be underestimating how quickly AI will reshape professional work. The “shiver up the spine” moment may be coming for many more professionals than we realize.