COMPLIANCE
PROF BERNARD AGULHAS
CA(SA)
ANÉ CHURCH CA(SA)
"To be or not to be? That is the
question - Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them?"
T
he famous question from Shakespeare’s Hamlet was perhaps best explained by former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, who sharply retorted: “This is not a compromise — either you be, or you don’t be.”
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If only it was always that simple. In a profession that will soon be challenged — or probably already is — by the dreaded artificial intelligence (AI), accountants and auditors must by necessity take up arms and defend their raison d’être; unlike Hamlet, our choices are more limited - not only must we remain future-fit, but also restore the former glory and esteem that the profession held prior to the recent audit failures. Within this context, what is the profession’s “X factor”? What will distinguish it from AI, rendering it Advancing Auditing &Accountability
fit for purpose in the future, as well as credible after the audit lapses of the past? For a start, the ability to think for oneself must surely eclipse the ability to script programmes to do so. Behavioural competencies such as critical and analytical thinking, scepticism and being independent, therefore, remain the exclusive domain of human beings (at least for now). This, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that human beings themselves are not open to being programmed — and the auditing profession is no different. If we repeatedly do
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