Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike D.
They also announced the other day that they were laying of 10,000 employees. When the rich people can stay rich with chatbots instead of us, they don't need us anymore.
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The entire accounting profession has been warning of the same thing for years now. They've predicted that the world's biggest auditing firms will likely be cutting staffs by up to half in the coming decades. Instead of having actual human auditors going in to review and search/look at client records, they're in the process of developing this AI type software to simply plug into a client's accounting software system, and it will automatically pull out all the data and information that human auditors used to look at, assess, and then decide what else to possibly look at/test, and so on. I used to joke to colleagues that I can see the future now. Instead of an accounting/auditing firm showing up at a client's offices with a group of auditors to start going through the books and records, they'll end up sending out just one person, who upon arrival will ask for access to a laptop or something tied into the company's computer system. They'll simply pull out a zip drive containing their auditing software made specifically for the software the client company uses to keep its books and records on, and plug it into the laptop or whatever, and then go get a cup of coffee and BS with the company's CFO or Controller for a few minutes. After finishing their coffee, they'll grab the zip drive, which the program on it has now gone through and copied from the client's entire set of files, data, and records, the bulk of the testing selections and such other detail, work, and info that trained auditors used to perform and do, including replacing their skeptical eye and instincts to review and investigate potential client errors, problems, and issues, and then head right back to their acounting office. The main problem with something like this is the people writing the auditing software are likely reliant upon the people (or maybe in some cases the same people) that wrote the accounting software the client company uses to begin with. No possible bias or conflicts with that, right? And the worst part is the software is written by software people to begin with, not by actual trained and experienced accounting auditors. No chance for errors or screw ups at all, right.
Let me tell you as someone who has lived through the entire history of tax preparation software, a lot of it is not great, and mostly all written by programming nerds who only do things their way. If an actual CPA/tax professional were to write such software, I know that in my personal case at least, I would have made ton of changes to the way those tax programs work and are set up and operate and calculate things. My understanding is that programmers always say they can't do it the way that many tax professional would like and prefer, because that isn't how programming works. Many people would be surprised at all the issues and errors that supposedly even top of the line tax software has been providing the public for decades. Don't get me wrong, tax accountants and CPAs still use these software products for the ease and speed, as well as record and info retention and e-filing capabilities they have, among other things. But, they also hopefully know how to do all the returns and filings without the tax software so they can catch and correct the errors and issues the software can miss or generate. Tax software is a tool, nothing else, and not always a really sharp one!
And when it comes to all software and such, I still remember one prime thing the professors in computer classes used to impress upon us back in college between class sessions and time in the computer center hand typing our work onto punch cards. GIGO And since ultimately all the computers and software are human generated, written, and built, and all humans make errors, you would never, ever be able to completely get away from crap and mistakes that are out there and find their way into virtually all programs.
01-22-2023, 02:51 PM
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