The Authority of Recognition
Credentialism, intellectual status and the uncomfortable question of competence in the age of artificial intelligence
Paul Morrill
Independent Researcher
The certificate and the competence
I have been following discussions concerning artificial intelligence and its implications for higher education with considerable interest. One recurring feature is the apparent determination of some academic and professional communities to preserve existing mechanisms of accreditation, recognition and institutional authority, even as the activities upon which those arrangements were established undergo substantial change.
Perhaps this is unsurprising. Institutions have an interest in maintaining their legitimacy, and those who have invested considerable time and effort in obtaining professional recognition might reasonably be expected to attach value to it.
However, I wonder whether we are becoming increasingly confused about the distinction between possessing competence and possessing institutional recognition of that competence.
The two are related, but they are not interchangeable.
A qualification may provide useful evidence that an individual has acquired particular knowledge or skills. Professional accreditation may establish that someone has satisfied specified standards. Neither necessarily establishes that the individual remains competent when circumstances change, nor does the absence of formal recognition establish that someone lacks the relevant abilities.
These distinctions have always existed. What interests me is whether AI is making them rather more difficult to ignore.
Spence's (1973) account of labour-market signalling provides a useful starting point. Employers cannot directly observe every aspect of an applicant's abilities, and qualifications may therefore reduce uncertainty about their likely performance.
There is nothing inherently objectionable about this. The difficulty arises when the signal becomes confused with the underlying attribute.
A certificate establishes that someone satisfied particular requirements. Whether those requirements reliably predict subsequent competence is a separate question.
Research on occupational licensing illustrates why this distinction matters. Kleiner and Xu (2025) found that licensing restricted movement between occupations while being associated with higher wage growth among licensed workers. Licensing can therefore influence economic opportunity as well as establish professional eligibility.
This does not make licensing inherently undesirable. In professions where inadequate competence creates serious risks, restrictions may be entirely justified. But it does suggest that we ought to examine the public benefits alongside the advantages conferred upon those already recognised.
The OECD's (2026) examination of skills-first labour markets makes a related argument. Formal qualifications remain important, but they do not necessarily capture the full range of abilities individuals acquire through employment, informal learning and experience.
Perhaps the question is not whether credentials have value, but whether that value should be assumed or demonstrated.
The engineer and the problem
I recently came across an exchange concerning the recruitment of engineers. Someone asked how one might identify a good engineer.
The response was remarkably simple: ask the candidate to describe a problem they had encountered, how they identified it and what they did to resolve it.
There is quite a lot contained within that apparently innocuous question.
It does not begin with an inventory of qualifications, professional memberships or institutional affiliations. Instead, it asks the individual to reconstruct their reasoning.
What evidence did they consider? Which explanations did they reject? What happened when their initial assumptions proved incorrect? How did they determine whether the intervention had worked?
Of course, someone could construct a convincing account without possessing particularly impressive practical abilities. Appropriate follow-up questions or direct demonstrations would therefore be necessary.
Nevertheless, the principle is reasonable. Schmidt and Hunter's (1998) influential review of personnel selection found that structured interviews and work-sample assessments provided useful information about subsequent job performance.
More recent evidence suggests that some employers are placing greater emphasis upon demonstrable skills. Bone et al. (2025), analysing approximately 11 million UK job advertisements, found that mentions of university education requirements in AI-related vacancies declined by 15% between 2018 and 2023.
Their findings do not establish that degrees are becoming redundant. Indeed, many specialist technical occupations continue to demand substantial formal education. Nor do advertised requirements necessarily reflect actual recruitment decisions.
But they suggest that traditional qualifications are not always sufficient indicators of the capabilities employers require.
I suspect the more interesting question concerns the forms of competence that become valuable as knowledge and technical assistance become increasingly accessible through AI.
It would be foolish to claim that AI cannot solve unfamiliar problems. Increasingly, it can. But producing a plausible solution and establishing whether that solution is appropriate within a particular physical or professional context are not necessarily the same activity.
Sometimes the relevant expertise lies in recognising that the apparently obvious answer is wrong.
When the apparatus disagrees with the software
There is an example from my own doctoral research that illustrates something of what I mean.
During my PhD viva, an external examiner from Imperial College raised a question concerning exposure duration in one of my visual psychophysics experiments.
The problem concerned the relationship between the stimulus durations programmed into NIH Image 1.59 and those actually delivered by the CRT display.
As documented in my doctoral thesis (Morrill, 2003, Section 7.4.2.2.3, pp. 206–207), a phototransistor connected to an oscilloscope was used to measure the actual stimulus timings. Those measurements revealed discrepancies between the nominal software values and the physical exposure durations.
The experimental data were re-plotted using the measured durations rather than those specified in the software. Figure 7.3 documents the measurement circuit and the comparison between nominal and measured timings.
I mention this because it illustrates several aspects of experimental competence that are not necessarily apparent from someone's formal qualifications.
The software provided one account of what was happening. Independent measurement of the apparatus revealed something different.
Establishing which values were appropriate required an understanding of the physical system, its limitations and the means by which its behaviour could be independently verified.
Merely operating the software correctly was insufficient.
There is also an important point about the viva itself. The external examiner's question represented a legitimate exercise of academic scrutiny. The issue could be examined through independent evidence rather than settled through an appeal to authority.
This, I would argue, is what scientific discourse should encourage.
The example also has a contemporary relevance. AI can generate increasingly sophisticated explanations, analyses and technical procedures. Yet there remains a distinction between what a system reports and what has actually occurred.
Scientific expertise includes knowing when not to trust the instrument, the software or, for that matter, the apparently authoritative answer.
The lesson is not that practical expertise is superior to academic expertise. It is that reliable science frequently depends upon different forms of expertise working together, and that institutional titles alone do not establish who possesses the relevant understanding of a particular problem.
The engineer, the teacher and the fellowship
I wonder whether something similar might be applied to teaching.
Consider the professional recognition schemes administered through Advance HE. The Professional Standards Framework 2023 requires applicants to demonstrate effective and inclusive teaching or learning-support practice (Advance HE, 2023).
It would therefore be incorrect to suggest that Fellowship is awarded simply for producing an impressive reflective narrative. There are specified professional standards, and applicants are expected to provide evidence of satisfying them.
Nevertheless, retrospective accounts of practice and reflection remain important elements of recognition.
An academic describes their teaching, explains the decisions they have made and demonstrates how their work satisfies the framework.
They receive professional recognition.
Fair enough.
But what exactly has been established, and for how long does that judgement remain informative?
Teaching is hardly a static occupation. Technologies change, students change, institutional resources change, and established approaches may require substantial reconsideration.
Generative AI offers an obvious example. Assessment methods that previously appeared appropriate may now be less effective at distinguishing independent understanding from assisted production. Approaches to feedback, technical instruction and evaluating student learning may need modification.
An academic might obtain Fellowship based upon an excellent account of their practice and subsequently discover that much of that practice requires reconsideration.
The recognition remains.
This is not necessarily a problem in itself. Fellowship may legitimately acknowledge that someone satisfied particular standards at the time of assessment. Nor does the existence of a permanent award imply that Advance HE guarantees its holder will remain an effective teacher indefinitely.
However, historical recognition and current competence are not identical constructs.
There is now some empirical work that makes this distinction particularly interesting.
Burns et al. (2024) examined a small UK programme supporting healthcare educators seeking professional recognition. Participants reported benefits including greater confidence, increased reflection and opportunities for professional recognition. However, the researchers acknowledged that evidence directly connecting Fellowship accreditation with improved teaching effectiveness or student outcomes remains limited.
The study was small and did not attempt to establish whether recognised educators were objectively more effective than their unrecognised colleagues.
More recently, Siostrom et al. (2026) interviewed seven Australian academics who had obtained Advance HE Fellowship. Their findings were mixed. Some participants found the process affirming and professionally valuable, while others reported little meaningful change in their actual teaching practice.
This is an important distinction.
Professional recognition may improve someone's sense of professional worth without necessarily improving the practice being recognised.
That does not make recognition worthless. Confidence, professional identity and collegial support may themselves have considerable value. But these are not the same outcomes as demonstrably better teaching.
Neither study establishes that Fellowship fails to improve teaching. The available evidence is too limited for that conclusion.
What they do establish is the need to distinguish between the experience of receiving recognition, the professional development associated with obtaining it and the subsequent effectiveness of the individual concerned.
These should not be treated as though they were the same thing.
Hatano and Inagaki's (1984) distinction between routine and adaptive expertise offers a useful perspective. Routine expertise involves the effective application of established procedures, while adaptive expertise involves responding to unfamiliar circumstances and reconsidering existing assumptions.
Both are valuable. But where professional environments change rapidly, adaptability may become particularly important.
Perhaps academics should occasionally be asked the same question posed to the engineer.
Describe a problem encountered in your teaching. How was it recognised? What evidence suggested that the existing approach was inadequate? What changed, and how was the effect examined?
And what happened when the intervention failed?
These questions still require reflection. Indeed, they demand rather more of it.
The difference lies in connecting reflection to decisions, evidence and consequences rather than treating the account itself as sufficient evidence.
AI makes this distinction more pertinent. A convincing professional narrative can now be produced with considerable technological assistance. This need not be objectionable, but it complicates any assumption that the narrative accurately represents the individual's underlying competence.
The difficulty is not reflection itself. It is determining what conclusions can reasonably be drawn from it.
The curious economy of mutual admiration
There is another aspect of professional recognition that I find increasingly difficult to ignore, particularly when observing exchanges on LinkedIn.
The same individuals appear repeatedly, congratulating one another on appointments, fellowships, awards and professional distinctions.
Much of this is undoubtedly genuine and well deserved.
Nevertheless, I sometimes wonder whether something rather more interesting is occurring than simple professional courtesy.
When members of an established community repeatedly validate one another's achievements, they may also reinforce the authority of the arrangements through which those achievements acquire their significance.
An award matters because the community recognises it. The community's authority is reinforced because people continue to seek and celebrate its awards.
Bourdieu's (1986) account of cultural capital is useful here. Formal qualifications can confer institutional legitimacy upon particular forms of knowledge, while professional networks influence how that recognition acquires social value.
There is also evidence that interpersonal approval can affect access to positions of authority.
Westphal and Stern (2006), examining corporate board appointments, found that ingratiatory behaviour, including flattery and opinion conformity, could facilitate access through established professional networks.
This does not establish that academic LinkedIn communities operate in the same way, or that those exchanging congratulations are consciously seeking professional advantage.
I am not proposing some grand conspiracy of mutual backslapping.
The process may be considerably more mundane.
People become invested in institutions that recognise them, while those institutions derive legitimacy from individuals who continue to regard their recognition as valuable.
The difficulty arises when those same communities are asked to examine whether the arrangements through which their status was acquired remain necessary.
There is an obvious tension between critically examining a system and recognising that one's own professional position derives value from its continued existence.
The danger is not necessarily deliberate self-interest. It is that reciprocal recognition can become self-reinforcing, making it difficult to distinguish the practical value of a credential from its social value within the community that awards it.
There is also a more sympathetic interpretation. Professional communities can provide encouragement, support and recognition to individuals whose contributions might otherwise go unnoticed. Indeed, the study by Siostrom et al. (2026) identified peer support as a positive feature of the Fellowship experience.
That benefit should not be dismissed.
The question is whether professional communities are equally willing to recognise competence that originates beyond their established boundaries, particularly where it challenges the assumptions upon which their own recognition depends.
The authority of the title
A related difficulty concerns the distinction between institutional status and intellectual authority.
Consider a technician and an esteemed professor engaged in a disagreement.
The technician may have spent twenty years working with experimental equipment, identifying faults, developing procedures and understanding the limitations of particular systems.
The professor may possess substantial theoretical knowledge, an extensive publication record and considerable research experience.
Both may have something useful to contribute.
Yet I wonder whether observers would afford their arguments equal consideration before knowing who held which title.
There is empirical evidence that status can influence the perceived credibility of intellectual contributions.
Fişek et al. (2005), working within expectation states theory, examined how status cues shape expectations of competence.
More directly, Zhu et al. (2016) conducted five studies examining the credibility afforded to researchers. Their findings demonstrated that status characteristics, including institutional affiliation, could influence credibility judgements.
Interestingly, this was not simply a matter of higher status always producing greater credibility.
The researchers found that participants' ideological beliefs influenced the direction of their judgements. Those with more elitist orientations tended to favour higher-status researchers, whereas more egalitarian participants tended to favour lower-status researchers.
This is rather more interesting than a straightforward assumption that everyone automatically believes the professor.
It suggests that the credibility afforded to an argument may depend partly upon the social meaning attached to the person advancing it, and upon the expectations of the person evaluating it.
Fricker's (2007) work on epistemic injustice provides a related philosophical perspective. Her concept of testimonial injustice concerns credibility deficits arising from identity prejudice. A disagreement between a technician and professor is not automatically an instance of testimonial injustice in this specific sense, but it does raise questions about how professional identities influence whose knowledge is taken seriously.
We should also acknowledge that titles are not meaningless.
Professorial appointments frequently reflect substantial academic achievement. In circumstances where an individual's expertise is relevant, their experience should reasonably inform how their contribution is evaluated.
The problem arises when the title substitutes for examination of the argument.
A claim does not become correct because it originates with a professor. Nor does it become less credible because it originates with a technician.
There is an irony here. Universities attach considerable importance to critical thinking, independent judgement and the examination of evidence. Yet institutional hierarchies may encourage precisely the deference to authority that critical thinking is supposed to challenge.
Perhaps the most revealing question is whether an argument would receive the same response if the professional identities of those making it were concealed.
The research suggests that, under at least some circumstances, it might not.
The inconvenience of an argument
Something else I find rather curious about academic discourse is the ease with which uncomfortable criticism can sometimes be dismissed without substantive engagement.
Occasionally, the critic is informed that they have failed to appreciate the complexity of an issue or misunderstood the institutional circumstances.
Such responses may sometimes be justified. However, asserting that something is complicated does not establish that the original criticism is mistaken.
On other occasions, the discussion reaches that familiar question:
'Well, what do you suggest we do?'
I have always found this a rather cheap way of ending an argument when it is offered instead of addressing the criticism.
Identifying a problem does not necessarily oblige someone to provide its solution. Nor does the absence of an immediately available alternative establish that the existing arrangements are defensible.
Of course, asking for alternatives may be entirely reasonable, particularly when someone proposes a practical change.
But there is a distinction between examining the implications of a criticism and using the demand for a solution to avoid considering whether the criticism is justified.
The latter can amount to an inappropriate transfer of the argumentative burden.
This becomes particularly interesting when institutional status enters the exchange.
An established authority may sometimes dismiss an objection with relatively little explanation, while someone occupying a less prestigious position is expected to provide extensive evidence and perhaps an entire implementation strategy before their criticism receives serious consideration.
One wonders whether the same evidential expectations would apply if their institutional positions were reversed.
The point is not that every argument deserves unlimited attention. It is that arguments should be judged according to their substance rather than the status of the person advancing them.
AI and the changing basis of expertise
Artificial intelligence introduces an interesting complication into these established relationships.
It allows individuals to obtain technical assistance, explore unfamiliar subjects, develop computational models and communicate complex ideas without the same degree of dependence upon conventional educational intermediaries.
This does not automatically confer expertise.
Nor does producing sophisticated work with AI establish that an individual possesses the understanding necessary to evaluate it.
However, there is evidence that AI assistance can alter the relationship between accumulated experience and productive capability.
Brynjolfsson et al. (2025), studying 5,172 customer-support workers, found that access to a generative AI assistant increased productivity by approximately 15% on average, with larger gains among less experienced workers.
These findings concern a particular occupational environment and cannot simply be generalised to scientific research, teaching or engineering.
Nevertheless, they suggest that AI can enable individuals to perform some activities more effectively without acquiring the same accumulated experience previously associated with that performance.
This may make the relationship between institutional seniority and demonstrable capability less straightforward.
The established professional may still possess considerable expertise. Indeed, the ability to identify errors, recognise faulty assumptions and exercise judgement when existing procedures fail may become increasingly valuable.
But the value of that expertise may need to be demonstrated rather than inferred from institutional position.
There is also a difficulty in the opposite direction. AI makes it easier to produce apparently impressive evidence of competence without necessarily possessing the underlying understanding.
We therefore face two possibilities simultaneously.
Capable individuals without conventional credentials may be overlooked because they lack institutional recognition.
Others may possess recognised credentials whose assessment no longer provides sufficiently reliable evidence of the abilities being claimed.
The issue is not whether we should abandon standards. It is whether the methods used to establish them remain appropriate.
When recognition survives its purpose
I think we can now identify a distinction that deserves closer examination.
A credential may persist because it continues to perform a useful function. It provides dependable evidence of competence, protects the public or establishes standards that would otherwise be difficult to maintain.
Alternatively, it may persist because individuals and institutions have become invested in its continued recognition.
These explanations are not mutually exclusive.
A qualification may provide genuine public benefit while also conferring social and economic advantages upon those who possess it.
Nevertheless, the distinction matters.
At the point of accreditation, a credential may provide useful evidence of competence. Over time, the abilities it represents may improve, deteriorate or become less relevant as professional requirements change.
The credential itself may remain unchanged.
This suggests the possibility of credential–competence divergence: a weakening relationship between formal recognition and the current competence that others assume it represents.
Such divergence is not inevitable. Some abilities remain valuable for decades, and professional experience may improve competence long after the original qualification was awarded.
The difficulty arises when historical recognition is treated as sufficient evidence of current capability.
There is also the possibility of social persistence. A credential may continue to confer prestige because established professional communities repeatedly recognise its significance, even where independent evidence of its continuing predictive validity is limited.
We should therefore distinguish four related matters: actual competence, the validity of the credential as evidence of competence, the institutional authority to award recognition and the social credibility afforded to the person who receives it.
These may be associated, but they are not equivalent.
The question is whether a professional recognition system can continue to accumulate authority even when its ability to identify relevant competence becomes uncertain.
That, I suspect, is a more useful question than simply asking whether traditional gatekeepers are becoming anxious about AI.
Who should demonstrate continuing validity?
There is an obvious difficulty with this argument.
If professional recognition becomes less informative as circumstances change, how do we establish that the competence originally recognised remains relevant?
The conventional response might involve periodic reaccreditation, further professional development requirements or additional reflective accounts.
I am not particularly enthusiastic about any of these possibilities.
Teaching academics already operate under considerable administrative pressure. It would be rather perverse to criticise credentialism only to propose another collection of forms, workshops and professional recognition exercises.
Perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of requiring academics to repeatedly demonstrate their competence through additional institutional procedures, we might examine how that competence is exercised in the ordinary course of their work.
I return to the engineer who was asked to describe a problem, how it was identified and what was done to resolve it.
Something similar occurs throughout teaching.
An assessment fails to distinguish understanding from reproduction. A laboratory exercise produces an unexpected result. Students successfully complete a statistical procedure but cannot explain the assumptions upon which it depends.
These are not necessarily failures of professional competence. They are circumstances in which competence becomes visible.
What matters is how the individual responds.
Do they recognise the problem? Can they consider competing explanations? Are they prepared to modify their approach when the evidence warrants it? Equally, can they defend an established practice when the latest proposed innovation offers little demonstrable advantage?
This suggests a form of embedded professional development, grounded in ordinary teaching activity and collegial examination of genuine problems.
Corcelles-Seuba et al. (2025), in a systematic review of 57 studies of reciprocal peer observation in higher education, identified opportunities for professional learning and collegiality, alongside practical challenges in implementing such approaches.
That provides support for the developmental principle, although it does not establish that peer observation can independently certify continuing competence.
I would be reluctant to turn this into another compulsory programme.
The moment institutions begin counting critical incidents, scoring professional conversations or requiring evidence of a minimum number of improvements, the proposal risks becoming another performance-management exercise.
Nor should we assume that a collegial discussion automatically demonstrates professional competence.
Supporting professional learning and verifying competence are different objectives.
Perhaps the more important change concerns where the burden of validation should fall.
If an organisation confers professional recognition, surely it has some responsibility for establishing whether its framework continues to identify the capabilities that matter.
This need not involve continually reassessing every individual who has received an award.
Instead, the organisation could periodically examine whether the criteria upon which recognition is awarded remain appropriate, whether they identify meaningful differences in professional competence and whether alternative routes can demonstrate comparable capability.
Such examination could draw upon independent research, comparative studies and carefully selected examples of changing professional practice.
For example, a recognition scheme claiming to identify effective teaching practice ought to be interested in whether its assessments provide information about teaching effectiveness beyond that already available from professional experience, practical observation and other relevant evidence.
It should also examine whether those relationships persist as educational practices change.
This would require thoughtful research, not another collection of superficial performance indicators.
There is no need to reduce teaching to student satisfaction scores, module pass rates or the number of professional development activities completed.
Nor should an institution conclude that a recognition scheme is effective merely because large numbers of people have successfully obtained recognition through it.
A Fellowship might reasonably remain permanent acknowledgement that someone satisfied particular professional standards at a particular time.
What it should not become is an unquestioned assurance of continuing competence, or evidence that those without the same recognition are necessarily less capable.
The academic should not be expected to continually justify their professional existence through additional administrative exercises.
But an institution claiming the authority to recognise competence should be prepared to demonstrate that its means of doing so remain meaningful.
The danger of removing the gatekeeper
There is an important objection to my argument.
Professional accreditation often exists for good reasons.
Medicine, engineering, aviation and numerous other occupations involve activities where inadequate competence can cause serious harm.
Replacing appropriate safeguards with declarations of ability, informal peer approval or impressive AI-assisted demonstrations would be irresponsible.
Indeed, AI may increase the importance of independent verification.
There is also a danger in assuming that removing established institutional gatekeepers necessarily produces greater equality.
Commercial AI providers may themselves acquire considerable authority over the systems through which individuals obtain information, develop skills and undertake intellectual work.
One form of dependency might simply be replaced by another.
Nor should we overlook the possibility that informal approaches to recognising competence could favour individuals with established professional networks, sufficient confidence or access to influential colleagues.
The appropriate response is therefore neither the preservation of every existing credential nor the indiscriminate dismantling of professional standards.
It is to establish which requirements remain justified, how reliably they identify the relevant competence and whether equivalent abilities can be recognised through alternative routes.
Conclusion
I do not regard professional recognition as inherently objectionable. Nor do I believe that artificial intelligence has rendered established expertise unnecessary.
Quite the opposite.
The ability to exercise informed judgement, recognise faulty assumptions and evaluate competing explanations may become increasingly important as sophisticated technologies make plausible answers easier to produce.
What concerns me is the possibility that institutions will respond to these changes by strengthening mechanisms of recognition without adequately examining whether those mechanisms continue to serve their intended purposes.
We have developed elaborate systems for deciding who may be recognised as competent. We have been rather less successful at establishing whether that recognition remains informative when circumstances change.
There is something faintly absurd about professional communities celebrating an expanding collection of credentials while resisting questions about what those credentials actually demonstrate.
Perhaps this reflects the familiar tendency of institutions to preserve arrangements through which they have acquired authority. Perhaps it is a reasonable attempt to maintain standards in an environment where conventional indicators of expertise are becoming less dependable.
Most likely, both processes are operating to varying degrees.
The task is to distinguish them.
I return to the question posed to the engineer.
Tell me about a problem you encountered. How did you identify it, and what did you do to resolve it?
There may be rather more intellectual substance in that question than in some of the elaborate arrangements through which professional status is conferred.
And perhaps it is a question that institutions themselves should be prepared to answer.
What problem is this credential intended to solve? How do we know that it solves it? What evidence would persuade us that it no longer does?
The responsibility for answering these questions should not rest entirely with the individuals seeking recognition.
It should also rest with those claiming the authority to confer it.
After all, the purpose of professional recognition should be to help us identify competence.
It should not be to protect the authority of those who have already been recognised.
References
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