INTHEBLACK February 2022 - Magazine - Page 33
of CPA Australia’s Digital Transformation
Committee, says technology provides huge
opportunities for the accounting profession, while
also posing significant ethical questions.
“Tools like behavioural analytics and sentiment
analysis are becoming core to many accounting
decisions as they help firms to understand different
value systems and markets, so clients can make
more informed decisions,” he says. “There are many
positives in terms of economic productivity and
improving market reach.”
Nair adds that deep-learning tools can also
gather and analyse information quickly, including
unstructured data from sources like social networks
or emails.
“People are knowingly or unknowingly
making this data available,” says Nair. “When
it’s used unknowingly, ethical issues can arise.
The challenge, however, is that so many of our
institutions, our governance systems and our
regulatory frameworks haven’t kept up with the
pace of technological developments. Many of the
institutions are lagging behind.”
Jeannie Paterson, professor of law at University
of Melbourne and co-director of the university’s
Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, says there is a
general lack of understanding about the nature of
4IR technologies among the organisations that
use them.
“That creates a flow-on effect in understanding
what the risks are,” she says. “If you’re using natural
language processing, for instance, the risk of bias and
discrimination may arise in the way the language is
interpreted and used. There’s quite a different risk if
you’re using machine learning in advertising, where
the bias and discrimination might be found in who
gets to see ads and who doesn’t.”
This lack of understanding of 4IR technology
is also revealed in findings of the 2021 Fourth
Industrial Revolution Benchmark survey, by KPMG
Digital Delta in collaboration with Faethm. The
survey has found that most Australian business
leaders lack a deep knowledge or experience with 4IR
technologies, and less than half feel their organisation
is strongly prepared for technological change.
Piers Hogarth-Scott, partner at KPMG Digital
Delta and national leader IoT, says adoption
of technology has only accelerated since the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“Results of our 2021 study are being analysed,
and I expect we’ll see a greater uptake in
technology like AI,” he says.
“However, organisations need to develop strong
oversight and governance around its use.”
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intheblack.com February 2022 33