Accountants: The Leaders Like Philco
September 4, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
AI or smart software has roiled the normal routine of office gossip. We have shifted from “What is it?” to “Who will be affected next?” The integration of AI into work processes, however, is not a new thing. Most people don’t know or don’t recall that when a consultant could do a query from a clunky device like the Texas Instrument Silent 700, AI was already affecting jobs. Whose? Just ask a special librarian who worked when an intermediary was not needed to retrieve information from an online database.
A nervous smart robot running state-of-the-art tax software is sufficiently intelligent to be concerned about the meeting with an IRS audit team. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How’s that security push coming along? Oh, too bad.
I read “Why America’s Most Boring Job Is on the Brink of Extinction.” I think the story was crafted by a person who received either a D or an F in Accounting 100. The lingo links accountants with being really dull people and the nuking of an entire species. No meteor is needed; just smart software, the silent killer. By the way, my two accountants are quite sporty. I rarely fall asleep when they explain life from their point of view. I listen, and I urge you to be attentive as well. Smart software can do some excellent things, but not everything related to tax, financial planning, and keeping inside the white lines of the quite fluid governmental rules and regulations.
Nevertheless, the write up cited above states:
Experts say the industry is nearing extinction because the 150-hour college credit rule, the intense entry exam and long work hours for minimal pay are unappealing to the younger generation.
The “real” news article includes some snappy quotes too. Here’s one I circled: “’The pay is crappy, the hours are long, and the work is drudgery, and the drudgery is especially so in their early years.’”
I am not an accountant, so I cannot comment on the accuracy of this statement. My father was an accountant, and he was into detail work and was able to raise a family. None of us ended up in jail or in the hospital after a gang fight. (I was and still am a sissy. Imagine that: An 80 year old dinobaby sissy with the DNA of an accountant. I am definitely exciting.)
With fewer people entering the field of accounting, the write up makes a remarkable statement:
… Accountants are becoming overworked and it is leading to mistakes in their work. More than 700 companies cited insufficient staff in accounting and other departments as a reason for potential errors in their quarterly earnings statements…
Does that mean smart software will become the accountants of the future? Some accountants may hope that smart software cannot do accounting. Others will see smart software as an opportunity to improve specific aspects of accounting processes. The problem, however, is not the accountants. The problem will AI is the companies or entrepreneurs who over promise and under deliver.
Will smart software replace the insight and timeline knowledge of an experienced numbers wrangler like my father or the two accountants upon whom I rely?
Unlikely. It is the smart software vendors and their marketers who are most vulnerable to the assertions about Philco, the leader.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2024
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