Since the major idea regarding AI is its capacity to help or replace labour and skilled workers. There are two reasons which helps to relieve the stress. One of the reason is the inability of some companies to afford high-tech AI with very less to zero errors or omissions, even if they are multinational. Because if any of the calculations are misinterpreted, it could lead to a lot of financial loss to the firm. Even the reputation of the firm would be at stake. What ever we see in movies or tv shows, one thing should be kept in mind, whatever level of intuitiveness AI reaches, it will never be able to match human creativity. Because humans are the ones who are creating AI. and if they are afraid about their jobs being snatched from them, they should always remember that jobs, that could be replaced, be it, by humans or robots, are not beneficial for them in the long run.

“As humans we climb up the rungs of drudgery- physically tasking or mind-numbing jobs- to jobs that use what got us to the top of the food chain, our brains. — The Wall Street Journal, The Robots Are Coming. Welcome Them.

Being delusional is not an option as there is no way to escape reality, “Because the reality we’re in is way far different than the one you see in the movies, maybe. The future we’ll see tomorrow is in our hands and it entirely depends on us.”

After analyzing and reading about AI in the context of accounting professionals and business overall, it may seem like a difficult topic to get started with, but the good news is that it is not impossible. Like any other technology tool, AI platforms and technology can be learned and implemented over a period of time and should not be something that is avoided or feared. The silver lining in AI, this transformational technology which will impact our profession to the core is that by embracing AI and the automation that comes with it, it will allow us the capacity, new skills, and knowledge to begin our transition into becoming proactive advisors for our clients.

CPAs have been saying for years that they want to transition from bean counters to strategic advisors, and AI is providing these professionally skilled workers with a tool and platform to accomplish just that. It’s time to adapt and embrace the entrepreneurial CPA mindset so that they can help their firm move from an accounting service to advisory service.

As computers become more and more powerful, they won’t be substitutes for humans: they’ll be complements

.https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/09/10/ais-impact-on-accounting-and-finance/#ccf2458e8559

https://medium.com/swlh/why-ai-wont-replace-humans-1fe9f7834ae

The one thing which differentiates humans to machines is the fact that out of the two, only humans feel emotionally connected to others, because machines lack emotions. There are many examples to reason the argument as to why it is beneficial for professionals like accountants, for machines not to have emotions. As repetitive and basic tasks would be taken over by machines, professionals could focus more on the vast and more challenging areas of their jobs. One thing is of utmost importance, that automation works well for predictable and recurring tasks, but some activities like business meetings, struggling to find solutions to some accounting problems, strategy planning, financial planning, still require the expertise of human mind. Because companies cannot survive without the analytical skills and professionals’ high degree of emotional intelligence. Posting transactions and keeping track of those transactions is a very easy and simple task, even for machines, so if these tasks are automated, it would give the accounting professionals a chance to prove their worth of advising their clients on how to handle their accounts, cut down on their costs, offer technical or meaningful insights and recommendations on how to efficiently run their business. In this age of humans’ competition with machines, it is humans’ turn to invest their time in doing higher studies, so that they can become irreplaceable.

 In terms of the financial context, AIs may be able to help increase productivity, but humans are in par more creative than machines, as they can think of many new and unique ways to inspire people. Until the robots have robots of their own to install and maintain them, humans are going to be needed to design, plan, install, manage and maintain any robotics, technology, or AI systems. AI may be excelling in many fields, but there are two things in which it lacks. Responding to novel situations and extracting insight from data and determining next steps. These could be the areas where, professionals could come into play, and show their worth.

“There is plenty of evidence that artificial organisms can be designed so as to operate intelligently and even surpass the intelligence of human organisms. But there is no evidence that such artificial organisms, designed for the sole purpose of being intelligent, can generate feelings just because they are behaving intelligently.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/08/06/7-job-skills-of-the-future-that-ais-and-robots-cant-do-better-than-humans/#6c2d3a2d6c2e

Change is the law of nature, be it evolution of humans or evolution of machines. Those who resisted, have faced a lot of problems. In context of AI replacing some tasks or taking over the jobs of accountants or any other professionals, though it could be beneficial for the companies as even though some professionals have a degree, proving their competency, but still lack the ability to use their knowledge efficiently and effectively and that is why companies have to spend millions of dollars on technology which can help those people in their work.

Although it serves as a helping hand for those who lack in completing these tasks manually, still prove their worth when aided by technology. These aiding features of AI prove useful to only those who are willing to adjust and compromise, because they understand the law of nature, not saying that those who resist it, are not willing to adjust, but fail to adjust because it is still very new for them. As those people are the millennials of our society, they have done their fair share of study and worked their whole life, but now when they are about to retire, be it in a few days, months or years, suddenly are told to get accustomed to a technology which will help them in those tasks, in which they already excel.

Entering data on cloud and other software repeatedly on a daily basis, is kind of a easy job for baby boomers and generation x as they are already accustomed to these kind of technology, when they are getting their degrees but for millennials these tasks become hectic as are asked to learn on job, and change their style of working. Professionals should not be a luddite, because the Luddites were textiles workers who protested against automation, eventually attacking and burning factories because, “they feared that unskilled machine operators were robbing them of their livelihood.” Even though this happened way back in 1811, people’s nature of feeling insecure about changes is still very much common these days.

One thing should be kept in min that past is not an accurate predictor of future and even if the future does play out like the past, the jobs being created will require re-skilling and better education. Unless we make major changes, we will have hundreds of millions of people who will be out of jobs and all- both “blue” and “white” collar workers- will suffer from it. So, its very unlikely that there will be more jobs being created that are being destroyed by AI and automation.

https://www.iotforall.com/impact-of-artificial-intelligence-job-losses/

The profession of accountancy is one of those professions, which is a very secured job, because other people will continue to work and would need a professional to keep record of their transactions. Even with the rise of technology, the jobs of accountants will not be totally replaced by machines, but instead their jobs will to overlook the software due to automation. Gone are the days when book keepers, financial analysists, auditors and all other people related to accounting had to crunch in numbers on paper, but because of introduction of book-keeping software, it has made it easier to enter all the relevant data at anytime, from anywhere, since all the data pertaining to a particular client is even  connected to cloud.

Now, coming back to today’s world, where AI is introduced, and everything is on voice command. If there is anything you need to do or look up at any old record, you can easily put some key words and the AI will look up that for you. Auditing is something, which is a very discreet process as it has the companies’ financial records, and if those records are leaked it could be very dangerous for the company to recover it and on top of that hide it from those, it is trying to hide. Because only the investors and financial management should be aware of this highly delicate information.

Also, the digital copies of audits are much more efficient and effective. The most time- consuming process is of closing the accounts at end of the predetermined time periods, which vary on monthly, quarterly and half-yearly basis. But with these kinds of software, which automatically close all the accounts on the predetermined dates, a lot of time is saved. And this saved time my lead to loss for accountants, but could have a positive impact on the company, as it only needs to pay the accountant, for checking the accounts on a less regular basis, and even those accountants could invest that time in some other kinds of ventures, or devoting time to some new clients, so as to increase their network. Which means the time-consuming work of crunching numbers for hours, could be done in a few minutes by just giving some instructions and these accounting professionals could compensate this time in giving advice on income tax, or kinds of consultations.

 Although the major load bearing tasks will be taken over the machines, the professionals should also be willing to adjust with these changes, as it is for their own benefit.

Although all businesses are trying hard to get their hands, on AI by storing all their information on cloud, introducing chatbots and AI, by adopting and implementing advance technologies to streamline their operations. But the only field of function on the list being at high stakes, is accounting. The only reason is the high positive outcomes like cost and time effective operations, which yield more productivity and improved accuracy. Proving its positive aspects, AI is being increasingly used in administrative procedures as well. One of the significantly positive and primary benefits of AI in accounting is that as all the data handling, processing is being completed automated. Thus, all financial statements, bank reconcile statements, tax reports and all others statements’ data will have guaranteed accuracy levels, being generated quickly and reliably. Moreover, auto-bots can recognize and categorize data from various sources into the right accounting heads, proving that AI is doing this crucial task absolutely on its own.

Again, considering the crucial problem, giving almost all the accountants their worst nightmare of being unemployed, due to AI’s frequent discrepancies between the internal accounts of a business and its bank accounts. Now, there are some reasonable arguments, that even if companies will implement AI, Accountants’ jobs will never be fully taken over, because AI will just be taking over the cumbersome and repetitive tasks, whereas accountants could still be able to provide their advisory services. Whereas any accountant had to deal with massive quantities of data processing, with implementation of AI, his previously bestowed core cumbersome tasks will be eliminated, but it will make accountants to focus more on data strategy, statistical analysis, probability and deductive reasoning. Even though highly educated professionals with years of expertise excel in their field, they do can make mistakes, because of the simple fact that they are humans. AI, sophisticated as they may be, can take over financial roles an execute those tasks very well and accurately.

AI-powered machines are doing jobs humans either can’t do or would have to do very carefully. Space exploration is one of them. The Mars rover Curiosity is an example. It is freely roaming Mars because it examines the landscape as it explores and determines the best path to take. The result is that Curiosity is learning to think for itself.

https://www.datamation.com/applications/pros-and-cons-of-artificial-intelligence.html

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