AccountingToday: AI in Accounting - Who Are the Humans in the Loop?

By Chris Gaetano, AccountingToday

While "move fast and break things" might be OK for tech executives, accounting leaders have done the opposite when it comes to generative AI, with firms and the vendors that serve them eager to demonstrate the high level of oversight they exert to ensure quality and manage risk.

Key to many of these efforts has been the "human in the loop," a phrase that's been repeated over and over whenever accountants talk about generative AI, whether at a conference, webinar or product demo, or even in a news article. Less common, however, has been an explanation of what, exactly, people mean when they say that.

CEO Jin Chang said "human in the loop" to him effectively means that somewhere there is a human accountable, but he didn't find it to be radically different than telling firms to supervise their professionals too. "We say, 'Just like how you would review the work of your human practitioners, you should review the work of the AI outputs too.' That is how it feels familiar embedded into the workflow," said Chang.

Josh Tong, Fieldguide's head of product, noted the technology won't even work without human input, and therefore accountability. The software can surface insights and make recommendations, but ultimately it is up to the user to approve or deny them. Otherwise, the program would just hang, waiting for direction.

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