It’s Not Intelligence; It’s Functionality!

The press and pundits have extensively discussed the dangers of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the various ethical and functional effects of current emerging technologies. This paper attempts to focus on AI as applied to accounting and auditing and its realities. It shows studies using machine learning and natural language processing, including generative efforts, and robotic and extended process automation. It concludes that a very promising set of applications is emerging, but there is little immediate danger of being replaced by machines to most in the profession, although the impacts are going to be substantive. These applications primarily utilize individual or combined AI functions, and the realization of true intelligence remains a distant goal.