XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting

In his book Saving Capitalism , Robert Reich describes three categories that all modern work/jobs fit into: (Robert B. Reich, Saving Capitalism , Alfred A. Knopf, page 204-206) Routine production services which entails repetitive tasks, In-person services where you physically have to be there because human touch was essential to the tasks, Symbolic-analytic services which include problem solving, problem identification, and strategic thinking that go into the manipulation of symbols (data, words, oral and visual representations). In describing the third category, symbolic-analytic services, Mr. Reich elaborates: (emphasis is mine) “In essence this work is to rearrange abstract symbols using a variety of analytic and creative tools - mathematical algorithms, legal arguments, financial gimmicks, scientific principles, powerful words and phrases, visual patterns, psychological insights, and other techniques for solving conceptual puzzles .  Such manipulations improve efficiency-ac...

The CEOs of both Microsoft and Nvidia are pointing out that we are on the verge of a monumental shift, that there are new ways to perform "work". Basically, it is now very possible to insulate subject matter experts from the technology that they need to do their job without the subject matter experts needing to get their hands dirty with the technology. An example of this can be seen in this short video . (What is going on can be hard to grasp, effectively that software you see understands these theories .) Subject matter experts (SMEs) that understand an area of knowledge can now utilize technology that is readily available to them in a form that they can easily use that technology.  The technology will do what you tell the technology to do.  This capability will help subject matter experts automate their own work, amplify their productivity, make them more efficient, and improve the quality of their work output. By combining the capabilities of humans and the capabilities...

Who are you betting on: humanity or artificial intelligence? Frankly, I am betting on humanity even though humanity is made up of humans and humans have flaws and sometimes do really dumb things. The way that I figure the future will unfold is that sometimes the AI will be in control, other times humans will be in control; but over all, humans need to maintain control .  A computer is a tool just like a gun is a tool. A gun can be used to bring home dinner.  You can shoot yourself in the foot. A gun can also be used to murder someone or even mass murder or war. A gun is a tool.  I don't want to get into the gun control debate but think about that as you think about artificial intelligence; AI is a tool.  The problem with AI is not the AI tool; it is humans applying the AI tool inappropriately. Tools change the way we think.  Tools extend your mind. Engelbart described "aggregate work capacity" and "augmented capabilities" and the human system being augmented by ...

Business professionals and others with liberal arts degrees that are not paying attention to what information technology people are doing with artificial intelligence are making a big, big mistake in my view. They are putting themselves at a very significant disadvantage. These two articles summarize a lot of information nicely.  This paper, Human-in-the-loop or AI-in-the-loop?  Automate or Collaborate? , is excellent. This graphic is from that paper: This podcast,  Yaakov Belch: Humans in the Loop? No. Humans in Control – Episode 17 , is an incredibly fascinating discussion about how to think about how LLMs work. Personally, it never really occurred to me that humans would not be in control.  Now I understand why some people are concerned with artificial intelligence destroying humanity.  It is not about artificial intelligence "taking over".  It is about humans doing something really dumb when trying to take advantage of what artificial intelligence provi...

I began my career in accounting in 1982 as an auditor with Price Waterhouse when accounting and audit working papers and schedules were 100% paper.  But within three months, I was creating many of those same working papers and schedules first in VisiCalc and then Lotus 1-2-3.  I would create those schedules and working papers electronically, then print them out, and tape them into the bundle of paper that supported our audits. The Compaq luggable computer was invented and electronic spreadsheets where even more compelling. Today, accounting and audit working papers tend to be 100% electronic proxies for those paper documents created in Excel or some other electronic spreadsheet, Word or some other word processing document, PDF generated from some word processing document, and maybe HTML.  All of these are presentation oriented proxies for documents and none of them is truly understandable by a computer based process. The next step in the evolution of accounting and audi...

We have entered the "agentic era"; the era of the agent or intelligent software agent . Others refer to this as the "algorithmic economy".  Maybe think many very intelligent  microservices  exchanging information with each other and can work globally. In an interview with BG2, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicts that (paraphrasing) SaaS (software as a service) is dead and that AI agents will replace all software. The entire interview is the first link in "Additional Information" below.  These three videos provide a focused look at this statement: LinkedIn post including short video AI Insights Explorer video  (Microsoft CEO Predicts: "AI Agents Will Replace ALL Software") Microsoft CEO's Shocking Prediction: "Agents will replace ALL software" Here is my personal interpretation of what Satya Nadella is saying and what it means.  First, Nadella says that we are "on the brink of a monumental shift".  I agree with that statem...