In the next five years, there could be artificial intelligence or AI applications in state accounting and auditing that could counter large-scale graft and corruption accurately and quickly in state affairs.

With AI never again will large scale fraud happen in government as appalling as the Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP, the Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF, and other classified extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses, variants of pork in circumvention of the Supreme Court prohibition against it.

The move of the Commission on Audit or COA towards digital transformation of its audit approaches, techniques and processes could lead to the application of artificial intelligence in state accounting and auditing service in the next five years.

All that will be needed is to reduce or transform into algorithms the easy to implement and technology driven government accounting system compliant with international standards; introduce e-audit as the manner of conducting audits through digitizing government transactions, including collections in partnership with all government agencies; and leveraging technology to improve audit techniques and procedures, including the development of an automated audit system for e-collections and e-payments and the use of AI to crunch big data to determine patterns and detect fraud.

Digital transformation includes aligning existing rules and regulations with the changing times and conditions; prescribing new rules to cover gaps and emerging issues and updating audit guidelines for e-payment to cover contracts entered into with social media platforms; and capacitating and training both the auditors and agency personnel involved in financial transactions on the updated accounting and auditing rules and regulations.

There has been a hastened pace in the spread of artificial intelligence in various areas of human services and, most likely, sooner than expected there would be AI applications in state accounting and auditing to counter graft and corruption accurately and quickly in state affairs.

The reality of AI in church affairs has reached the consciousness of Pope Francis who said: “No machine should ever choose to take the life of humans.”

In response to the AI-caused job displacement apprehension, AI godfather Geoffry Hinton urged the British government to adopt the universal basic income or UBI.

What is artificial intelligence or AI?

AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computers. In general, AI systems work by ingesting large amounts of labeled data, analyzing that data for correlations and patterns, and using these patterns to make predictions.

Programming AI systems focuses on cognitive skills such as the following:

Learning. This aspect of AI programming involves acquiring data and creating rules, known as algorithms, to transform them into actionable information. These algorithms provide computing devices with step-by-step instructions for completing specific tasks.

Reasoning. This aspect involves choosing the right algorithms to reach a desired outcome.

Self-correction. This aspect involves algorithms continuously learning and tuning themselves to provide the most accurate results possible.

AI is important for its potential to detect large-scale fraud.

In a number of areas, AI can perform tasks more efficiently and accurately than humans. It is especially useful for repetitive, detail-oriented tasks such as analyzing large numbers of legal documents. AI’s ability to process massive data sets gives enterprises insights into their operations they might not otherwise have noticed.

The time would soon come when AI applications for state accounting and auditing which can perform tasks more efficiently and accurately than human accountants and auditors will be effectively used in state fiscal administration.