I suppose I agree that crowdsourcing is very good for some things–but some prediction markets essentially rely upon the aggregation of existing expertise, not only being opposite to or absent of expertise. Let’s put it this way–if we stopped training experts altogether because crowds were good enough, I think crowds would get dumber.

I suppose what I think experts are or could be good at is providing: a) ‘black swan’ insights about the possible importance of highly improbable events that crowds can’t see or discount; b) narrative explanations and interpretations of what crowds understand or know (e.g., they’re good as teachers/storytellers/communicators). What I think they are not presently good at but could become good at is being c) makers, creators, artisans who invent or refashion what crowds know. Not everything can be assembled through open-source networks.

I think the idea of pro bono is important to the professions. The problem is that neoliberalism has relentlessly stripped away the time and autonomy and overall compensation systems that made it possible, and much like any other ‘externality’ we don’t put that on the balance sheet as a cost of neoliberal approaches to organizing labor and society. So yes, we can’t assert a pro bono obligation unless we also rebuild some of the buffers and support systems that made it imaginable.

As for your larger point, I am not sure that experts will want to do pro bono work for criminal trials. That seems quite onerous.

Your oath might be a lot more forceful when rewritten in “I” statements, like the actual Hippocratic Oath. Or if you can work in some mad rhymes like the Green Lantern Oath.