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

23 Pages Posted: 25 Mar 2025 Last revised: 9 Mar 2025

See all articles by Susan Nancarrow

Susan Nancarrow

Southern Cross University - Faculty of Health; HealthWork International

Date Written: February 20, 2025

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

Suggested Citation

Nancarrow, Susan, From Bureaucratic Closure to Algorithmic Governance: AI and the Neo-Weberian Crisis of the Professions (February 20, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5171419 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5171419

Susan Nancarrow (Contact Author)

Southern Cross University - Faculty of Health ( email )

Australia

HealthWork International ( email )

12 Creek Street
Brisbane, 4000
Australia

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