From Bureaucratic Closure to Algorithmic Governance: AI and the Neo-Weberian Crisis of the Professions

Abstract

AI is not merely a tool for efficiency but a mode of epistemic governance, restructuring professional authority and expertise. This paper applies a Neo-Weberian framework to analyze how AI disrupts professions such as medicine, law, and academia. The decline of social closure (Abbott) and the rise of algorithmic rationalization (Zuboff) signal a shift where AI-driven decision-making, controlled by corporate entities, challenges traditional jurisdictional control. Drawing on Labour Process Theory (Braverman), Foucault's medical gaze, and sociotechnical systems theory, this paper examines AI's dual role: democratizing knowledge while centralizing power in corporate-technocratic elites. Professions respond through regulatory resistance, moral branding, and hybrid roles like AI auditors. Three futures are explored: corporate capture, where AI governs expertise; hybrid coexistence, where human oversight is embedded; and public reclamation, where AI is regulated as a public good. The future of expertise hinges on who controls AI's epistemic power-and who AI ultimately governs.

Keywords: AI and professions, Algorithmic closure, Algorithmic rationalization Epistemic governance, Social closure, Neo-Weberian, Sociology of the professions