Ethics of AI in Accounting

Artificial Intelligence has made significant progress in revolutionizing numerous industries, and accounting will be no exception. The benefits of integrating AI technologies into accounting practices to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and improve accuracy are too great to be ignored. However, as AI becomes more prevalent and widely adopted in the accounting world, we need to task ourselves with careful consideration of the ethics and safety of these changes. With the massive potential for change that AI can have on the profession, it will be important to be deliberate and measured in our development and adoption of the technology.

Data Privacy and Security

One of the primary ethical concerns associated with AI in accounting is data privacy and security. Accountants are trusted with vast amounts of sensitive financial information. The implementation of any AI system will raise questions about who has access to this data and how it is used. This is for good reason. It will be crucial for accountants to understand how the technologies they adopt utilize, manipulate and store data to remain a trusted expert for their clients.

Bias and Fairness

We tend to naturally associate bias with human experience but this also impacts the algorithms used by modern AI. As these tools are trained using existing data in order to learn how to make decisions, bias can unintentionally be trained into the algorithm. Bias can also be introduced by the training methods used by the developers and nature of the data being used by the model. At the end of the day it is important that AI is paired with informed users and developers with the expertise to identify when the model is providing biased or incorrect outputs.

Human Accountability

While AI is highly effective at performing repetitive tasks, it should never replace human accountability in accounting. The potential for errors or misinterpretations will always exist, and accountants must maintain oversight of AI systems to ensure their accuracy and reliability.

Job Displacement and Reskilling

Job displacement is an obvious concern with the automation potential of AI in accounting. As more and more repetitive and mundane tasks can be automated, the development and adoption of these tools should have the objective to empower rather than replace the roles of accountants. Accountants will in turn need to invest in evolving their skills and role to incorporate these emerging technologies so they continue to add value through their expertise and creativity.

By harnessing artificial intelligence, accountants can see massive progress in work-life balance and value to clients over the near future. Rushing into adopting these technologies without fully understanding the risks and potential outcomes could have a serious impact on the future and reputation of accountants.