The dark side of AI in professional services

The introduction and widespread adoption of Artificial Intelligence in the professions has the potential to deliver a number of critical public goods, such as widening access to justice and healthcare through AI-powered professional services. Yet, the deployment of AI in the professions does not come without challenges, exemplified by the concerns about explainability, privacy, and human agency. In this paper, we explore how these issues may give rise to dark sides of AI in professional services and illustrate how an uncoordinated process of adoption and deployment can threaten the scope of AI-powered services. In particular, we illustrate how the adoption and deployment of AI in services may undermine the fiduciary duty between clients and professionals that, so far, has safeguarded the relationship between them, creating a ‘market for lemons’ of professional services. We conclude with a reflection on plausible ways forward to facilitate and smooth the transition to AI-powered services.