Questões de Inglês

     

      There are still many unknowns with respect to how blockchain will impact the audit and assurance profession, including the speed with which it will do so. Blockchain is already impacting Certified Public Accountant (CPA) auditors of those organizations using blockchain to record transactions and the rate of adoption is expected to continue to increase. However, in the immediate future, blockchain technology will not replace financial reporting and financial statement auditing. Financial statements reflect management assertions, including estimates, many of which cannot be easily summarized or calculated in a blockchain.

           Furthermore, the process of an independent audit of financial statements enhances the trust that is crucial for the effective functioning of the capital markets system. Any erosion of this trust may damage an entity’s reputation, stock price and shareholder value, and can result in fines, penalties, or loss of assets. Users of financial statements expect CPA auditors to perform an independent audit of the financial statements using their professional skepticism. CPA auditors conclude whether they have obtained reasonable assurance that the financial statements of an entity, taken as a whole, are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. A blockchain is unlikely to replace these judgments by a financial statement auditor.

       That said, CPA auditors need to monitor developments in blockchain technology—it will impact clients’ information technology systems. CPA auditors will need to be conversant with the basics of blockchain technology and work with experts to audit the complex technical risks associated with blockchain.

         In addition, CPA auditors should be aware of opportunities to leverage their clients' adoption of blockchain technology to improve data gathering during the audit. They should also consider whether blockchain technology will allow them to create automated audit routines. The auditing profession must embrace and "lean in" to the opportunities and challenges from widespread blockchain adoption. CPA auditors and assurance providers are encouraged to monitor developments in blockchain technology because they have an opportunity to evolve, learn, and capitalize on their already proven ability to adapt to the needs of a rapidly changing business world.

(Adapted from https://www2.deloitte.com/za/en/pages/audit/articles/impact-ofblockchain-in-accounting.html)

Artificial General Intelligence Is Not as Imminent as You

Might Think

     To the average person, it must seem as if the field of artificial intelligence is making immense progress. According to the press releases, and some of the more ________ media accounts, OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can seemingly create spectacular images from any text; another OpenAI system called GPT-3 can talk about just about anything; and a system called Gato that was released in May by DeepMind, a division of Alphabet, seemingly worked well on every task the company could throw at it. One of DeepMind’s highlevel executives even went so far as to brag that in the quest for artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI that has the flexibility and resourcefulness of human intelligence, “The Game is Over!” And Elon Musk said recently that he would be surprised if we didn’t have artificial general intelligence by 2029.

     Don’t be fooled. Machines may someday be as smart as people, and perhaps even smarter, but the game is far from over. There is still an immense amount of work to be done in making machines that truly can comprehend and reason about the world around them. What we really need right now is less posturing and more basic research.

     To be sure, there are indeed some ways in which AI truly is making progress—synthetic images look more and more realistic, and speech recognition can often work in noisy environments—but we are still light-years away from general purpose, human-level AI that can understand the true meanings of articles and videos, or deal with unexpected obstacles and interruptions. We are still stuck on precisely the same challenges that academic scientists having been pointing out for years: getting AI to be reliable and getting it to cope with unusual circumstances.

(Fonte: Scientific American - adaptado.)

     

      There are still many unknowns with respect to how blockchain will impact the audit and assurance profession, including the speed with which it will do so. Blockchain is already impacting Certified Public Accountant (CPA) auditors of those organizations using blockchain to record transactions and the rate of adoption is expected to continue to increase. However, in the immediate future, blockchain technology will not replace financial reporting and financial statement auditing. Financial statements reflect management assertions, including estimates, many of which cannot be easily summarized or calculated in a blockchain.

           Furthermore, the process of an independent audit of financial statements enhances the trust that is crucial for the effective functioning of the capital markets system. Any erosion of this trust may damage an entity’s reputation, stock price and shareholder value, and can result in fines, penalties, or loss of assets. Users of financial statements expect CPA auditors to perform an independent audit of the financial statements using their professional skepticism. CPA auditors conclude whether they have obtained reasonable assurance that the financial statements of an entity, taken as a whole, are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. A blockchain is unlikely to replace these judgments by a financial statement auditor.

       That said, CPA auditors need to monitor developments in blockchain technology—it will impact clients’ information technology systems. CPA auditors will need to be conversant with the basics of blockchain technology and work with experts to audit the complex technical risks associated with blockchain.

         In addition, CPA auditors should be aware of opportunities to leverage their clients' adoption of blockchain technology to improve data gathering during the audit. They should also consider whether blockchain technology will allow them to create automated audit routines. The auditing profession must embrace and "lean in" to the opportunities and challenges from widespread blockchain adoption. CPA auditors and assurance providers are encouraged to monitor developments in blockchain technology because they have an opportunity to evolve, learn, and capitalize on their already proven ability to adapt to the needs of a rapidly changing business world.

(Adapted from https://www2.deloitte.com/za/en/pages/audit/articles/impact-ofblockchain-in-accounting.html)

Artificial General Intelligence Is Not as Imminent as You

Might Think

     To the average person, it must seem as if the field of artificial intelligence is making immense progress. According to the press releases, and some of the more ________ media accounts, OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can seemingly create spectacular images from any text; another OpenAI system called GPT-3 can talk about just about anything; and a system called Gato that was released in May by DeepMind, a division of Alphabet, seemingly worked well on every task the company could throw at it. One of DeepMind’s highlevel executives even went so far as to brag that in the quest for artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI that has the flexibility and resourcefulness of human intelligence, “The Game is Over!” And Elon Musk said recently that he would be surprised if we didn’t have artificial general intelligence by 2029.

     Don’t be fooled. Machines may someday be as smart as people, and perhaps even smarter, but the game is far from over. There is still an immense amount of work to be done in making machines that truly can comprehend and reason about the world around them. What we really need right now is less posturing and more basic research.

     To be sure, there are indeed some ways in which AI truly is making progress—synthetic images look more and more realistic, and speech recognition can often work in noisy environments—but we are still light-years away from general purpose, human-level AI that can understand the true meanings of articles and videos, or deal with unexpected obstacles and interruptions. We are still stuck on precisely the same challenges that academic scientists having been pointing out for years: getting AI to be reliable and getting it to cope with unusual circumstances.

(Fonte: Scientific American - adaptado.)

Artificial General Intelligence Is Not as Imminent as You

Might Think

     To the average person, it must seem as if the field of artificial intelligence is making immense progress. According to the press releases, and some of the more ________ media accounts, OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can seemingly create spectacular images from any text; another OpenAI system called GPT-3 can talk about just about anything; and a system called Gato that was released in May by DeepMind, a division of Alphabet, seemingly worked well on every task the company could throw at it. One of DeepMind’s highlevel executives even went so far as to brag that in the quest for artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI that has the flexibility and resourcefulness of human intelligence, “The Game is Over!” And Elon Musk said recently that he would be surprised if we didn’t have artificial general intelligence by 2029.

     Don’t be fooled. Machines may someday be as smart as people, and perhaps even smarter, but the game is far from over. There is still an immense amount of work to be done in making machines that truly can comprehend and reason about the world around them. What we really need right now is less posturing and more basic research.

     To be sure, there are indeed some ways in which AI truly is making progress—synthetic images look more and more realistic, and speech recognition can often work in noisy environments—but we are still light-years away from general purpose, human-level AI that can understand the true meanings of articles and videos, or deal with unexpected obstacles and interruptions. We are still stuck on precisely the same challenges that academic scientists having been pointing out for years: getting AI to be reliable and getting it to cope with unusual circumstances.

(Fonte: Scientific American - adaptado.)