Dr. Barry Scannell’s essay „The Shape of Things to Come” presents a compelling and deeply considered vision of AI’s transformative potential over the next 15 years. As a fellow lawyer specializing in IT and AI, I find his analysis both illuminating and provocative.
Key Insights from the Paper
Scannell’s central thesis is that we’re approaching an inflection point where AI systems are evolving from passive tools into autonomous agents capable of independent reasoning and action. Unlike previous technological revolutions that changed how we perform tasks, AI fundamentally changes who performs them.
His automobile analogy particularly resonates: when automobiles replaced horses, displaced workers like blacksmiths could become mechanics or factory workers. The critical difference with AI is that it not only displaces existing jobs but can also perform many of the new jobs it creates. In Scannell’s words, it’s as if „the automobile that is AI will indeed make some roles obsolete, and of course it will create new jobs – but these new jobs are also likely to be carried out by AI.”
Scannell projects that by 2030, it will no longer make commercial sense for businesses to avoid agentic AI, with integration largely complete by 2040. His timeline envisions rapid technological advancement over the next five years, followed by accelerating business adoption through 2030, and then a decade of workforce transformation.
Other particularly insightful observations include:
- The distinction between P-creativity (recombining existing ideas) and H-creativity (generating truly novel innovations) may define the boundary between human and machine capabilities.
- Ireland’s strategic position as one of just 18 Tier 1 countries exempt from US AI chip export restrictions offers unique economic opportunities but comes with geopolitical alignment expectations.
- The environmental footprint of AI is substantial and growing—from electricity consumption to water usage and resource extraction—creating a paradox where AI systems simultaneously consume resources while potentially enabling conservation at a larger scale.
- The „AI literacy divide” threatens to create deeper educational stratification than any previous technological transition, potentially determining educational and career trajectories for decades.
- The copyright challenges of AI may represent a transitional phase rather than a permanent feature, as systems increasingly generate synthetic training data rather than relying on copyrighted human content.
My Professional Assessment
As a lawyer specializing in technology and AI, Scannell’s analysis strikes me as perspicacious yet measured. While many futurists either overestimate short-term impacts or underestimate long-term transformations, Scannell walks this line adeptly.
His analysis of regulatory frameworks is particularly astute. The observation that Ireland could leverage its position at the intersection of EU regulation and US innovation to become a global AI governance leader reflects strategic thinking that many in the field haven’t fully appreciated.
The section on legal services disruption hits particularly close to home. Scannell correctly identifies that agentic AI will increasingly handle document review, contract generation, legal research, and case strategy development. His question about how junior lawyers will develop expertise when AI performs their traditional training work is one I grapple with daily. This challenge extends beyond law to medicine, finance, and other knowledge professions.
Scannell’s discussion of Ireland’s distributed enforcement model for the EU AI Act strikes me as both practical and potentially problematic. While leveraging existing sectoral regulators makes sense, I wonder if this approach risks inconsistent interpretations across industries.
From my perspective, his emphasis on AI literacy as a critical educational imperative is absolutely correct. The divide between those who can effectively leverage AI and those who cannot will likely become the defining educational inequality of our generation.
I’m slightly more skeptical than Scannell about the environmental sustainability of AI. While efficiency innovations will certainly help, the economic incentives for deployment may outpace sustainability improvements, potentially creating significant environmental challenges.
Final Thoughts
Scannell’s paper is remarkable for being both ambitious in scope and grounded in practical reality. His conclusion that „We are changing the world and we need to act like it” serves as an appropriate call to action.
As a legal professional navigating the AI landscape, I find this paper provides a valuable framework for anticipating the profound shifts coming to our profession and society. The legal field must prepare not just for incremental change but for fundamental transformation in how legal services are conceived, delivered, and valued.
For all of us in the legal profession, the paper reinforces that our most enduring value may lie not in our analytical capabilities—which AI increasingly replicates—but in our ethical judgment, client relationships, and ability to navigate the complex human dimensions of legal problems. These distinctly human capabilities may define the contours of tomorrow’s legal profession.
Scannell has crafted a genuinely important contribution to our understanding of AI’s transformative potential—a potential that remains substantially underestimated in mainstream discourse and even within our own profession.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-barry-scannell-bbb5aa207/