I'm not at all conviced. They point out minute, small progressions in the direction of automation and then extrapolate that to 'the professions we're so used to having will wither and die because AI, that's why'.

Thus we turn up at our doctor’s with more web-collated information on our persistent leg wound than a field paramedic. If search engines struggle to turn up the answers we seek, we find the solution ourselves in a jungle of user forums where we interpret and judge the practical opinions of others. This amounts to the devolution of a classic professional competence.

What, so because I can read WebMD I'm suddenly in the same ballpark as a doctor with at least a decade of education behind him? Some people can figure some medical issues out sometimes. Maybe your GP has slightly less people with stupid questions. Doesn't mean the whole profession is devolving.

And more students sign up for Harvard’s online courses in a single year than have ever attended its Massachusetts campus.

How many actually finish that and use it for something in their work life? Shockingly little. This is also implying that teaching as we know it is doomed because some MOOCs do reasonably well. Besides, since when is teaching is only about giving presentations?

The Vatican has even launched an official app to help sinners prepare for confession (though with the usual proviso that it is no substitute for the real thing)

sigh. Pack it up religious leaders, it's time to go home, there's an app for that now.

Perhaps the book is better than this, for example discussing discussing the inherent complexities in those professions and the difficulty of automating them. The hand-waving that happens here is awful, though.