~ Trying to stop generative AI is like trying to stop the calculator.

~ Its here, its going to be complex socially, and Im worried about the next election cycle.

~ The deep fake AI videos and audio are the most concerning.

~ These functions will lead to elder abuse in the form of getting scammed by con artists.

Dozens of the accounting professions top thought leaders, influencers and technology pioneers met in Las Vegas ahead of the 2023 AICPA Engage conference to discuss the technologies, trends and other factors that will affect the profession and commerce in the coming years.

Participants of the 2023 Accounting Think Tank were purposed with engaging with their colleagues and openly discuss issues that may have significant benefit, detriment or other effects on professionals. To encourage this dialogue, CPA Practice Advisor agreed to refrain from directly attributing quotes to specific individuals, although a list of attendees at the event was made public.

While the majority agreed that various new AI developments, which have caught public attention in the last year with the introduction of ChatGPT, Dall-E, and other products, may have some fearsome potential for abuse, many professionals in the conversation also noted the great opportunities for continued advances in automation and efficiency. And many noted that forms of AI and machine learning have been with us and used by firms and businesses for more than a decade. These new forms will have much broader reach than those such as analytics and ecommerce applications.

We need to pair this back to everyday work, to practical and specific uses, one said. It may be a hard conversation, but while ChatGPT is in the spotlight, generative AI is in so many things already, and in positive ways.

Some of the ways these professionals are already using this tech includes much more accurate note taking functions, firm knowledge-capturing functions, and improved data mining and planning. But steps must be made to anonymize the information.

Key takeaways from the groups discussion were:

Many also noted that, as accounting technology vendors integrate these forms of AI into their products, professionals will have a new learning curve to get the most of the new tech, while everyone will have to be more diligent in ensuring factual accuracy.

The thought leaders also discussed topic ranging from trends in advisory services, higher education and the 150-hour rule, staffing issues, firm structures, and future knowns and unknowns of the profession.

The leaders also interacted with technology vendors in frank, back-and-forth dialogue about elevating firms into more valuable advisory services, and how advanced firms can help educate others. The goal of enhancing the image of the profession among students, and elevating the appeal of accounting careers, was a notable focus.

The 2023 Accounting Think Tank was the first of what is expected to be an annual event, and included members of CPA Practice Advisors annual Thought Leaders and 40 Under 40 programs, which recognize many professionals who are shaping public practice and policy, as well as the technologies professionals rely on.

The event was hosted by CPA Practice Advisor, and sponsored by Intuit and Wolters Kluwer.

Gallery:

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Profession Must Strategize for AI, Other Technology Advances and ... - CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

Image Credits: OurX

Ceci Kurzman has spent much of her career building and investing in brands and serving as one of the few Black female board members for companies, including Lanvin, Revlon and Warner Music+.

While investing on behalf of some clients interested in beauty and personal care, Kurzman saw a gap in what kinds of products were available for multicultural groups and decided to do something about it.

I started looking for sort of a best-in-class, high-performance business that was direct-to-consumer and used all the business model innovations that were table stakes at that point, like e-commerce, personalization, clean, data driven, inclusive and sustainable, and I couldnt find anything even close, Kurzman told TechCrunch. When I couldnt find something to invest in, I went out and put together groups who targeted a demographic that was professional millennial, avid consumers, and we polled 30,000 of them, and we found 60% werent getting what they wanted and still felt stuck.

Out of that research came OurX, the latest company entering the Black hair care industry, currently valued at $2.51 billion. The companys proprietary technology taps into six years of research and data mining to create hair regimens and education for the scalp and tightly textured hair.

The first step is to take the four-step hair assessment that asks about your hairs health, the kind of styling and treatments you do, your daily routine and your lifestyle. At the end, it presents a regimen of products, a hair coach and peer community to best help you utilize the products. It also includes a series of guided at-home video-based tests to provide an even-more accurate read on their hair and scalp attributes. Throughout the entire assessment experience, users receive feedback and educational tips based on the inputs they provide.

OurX has seven products currently, and the average regimen of products offered is between $115 and $130. One-on-one access to hair coaches is available through a subscription.

The product regimen is influenced by a group of experts, including dermatologist Jenna Lester, celebrity hair stylist Johnny Wright and hairstylist Cataanda James.

Along with the launch, OurX announced that it has a new CEO, Meghan Maupin. Maupin, an MIT graduate, previously founded personalized skincare brand, Atolla, which was acquired by Function of Beauty in 2021.

When I dove deeper into haircare, I saw that theres actually a huge need for personalization, for this consumer in particular, Maupin said in an interview. For consumers with textured hair its not one-size-fits-all, but is actually much more complex in terms of whats needed for the day-in and day-out.

Like Kurzman, Maupin went into the beauty industry to change things, noting that she saw a lot of things in beauty that were broken, and with her background in data and technology, knew that she could fix some of those issues.

Meanwhile, OurX also launched with a $2.5 million seed round led by Reign Ventures.

We were very intentional to have a diverse cap table so to be able to pick and design our cap table was really important, Kurzman said. We wanted investors who understood the mission, understood the need and understood the market. Were lucky that weve been able to fund this round primarily with women and women of color, and theres some allies in there, too.

Read more here:

OurX adds tech spin to Black hair care regimen - TechCrunch

THE VILLAGES, Fla. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis paused his presidential campaign to sign a bill into law targeting transparency with technology in the state.

During a news conference Tuesday in Wildwood, DeSantis signed SB 262,which creates a so-called "digital bill of rights" to protect Floridians' digital rights and privacy from "Big Tech" companies.

[Technology is] such a big part of our daily lives and theres some benefits to that but there are also some drawbacks to that, DeSantis said. I think weve seen with some of these 'Big Tech' companies how theyve used their power to advance their agenda, how theyve used their power to commandeer personal information of individual Americans.

"We wanna make sure that were providing protection for Floridians to speak their mind on these platforms, making sure that their data isnt monetized without their consent.

Here's a breakdown of everything the freshly signed bill will do.

The law requires Google and other large search engines to release information on whether they prioritize search results based on political ideology, according to the governor's office.

The legislation also puts a block on what DeSantis called government-led censorship by stopping state or local employees from conspiring with "Big Tech" companies to censor protected speech.

In a statement, leaders explain the newly created "digital bill of rights" includes:

Floridians should have the right to control their own personal data, DeSantis said in a statement. If a multibillion-dollar company is conspiring to take your data and sell it or use it against you, it is your right to be able to protect that data.

"No longer will the Big Tech oligarchs be able to commandeer your personal information and deprive you of the right to access, confirm, or delete that data as you wish.

This freshly signed bill will also require that an online search engine publishes an up-to-date plain language description of the main parameters that are most significant in determining ranking and the relative importance of those main parameters, according to the governor's office.

Government employees will now be blocked from using their position to be in contact with social media platforms to remove content or accounts from the platform. On top of that, a governmental entity can't initiate or maintain any agreements or working relationships with a social media platform for the purpose of content moderation, the release explains.

This bill builds on legislation the governor signed recently, SB 258, which bans the use of TikTok and other "dangerous" foreign-made apps on government and educational institution devices across the state.

It codifies previous legislation and makes it applicable to all stages of local and state government, DeSantis said.

"So if you're trying to get on the WiFi or something with one of these CCP-backed apps, it's not going to let you go and do that," DeSantis previously said. "We think that's appropriate because we think whatever utility these applications have is clearly outweighed by the benefit that the CCP gets from data mining and being able to collect information."

Click here to read the full text for SB 262.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Watch the full news conference down below.

Go here to read the rest:

DeSantis signs SB 262, creating Digital Bill of Rights to protect Floridians' digital rights, privacy - WTSP.com

image:Figure 1. The four resilience patterns of human mobility in this event (together with corresponding occupation ratio in the area) and their geographical distribution from the view of both inflow and outflow view more

Credit: Science China Press

Resilience can be interpreted as the comprehensive ability of a system to prepare for, absorb, and recover from external or internal disturbances and shocks. In the context of human mobility, resilience therefore refers to the ability of people's movements within and between cities to cope with and adapt to disruptive events, such as natural disasters.

On July 20, 2021, a record-breaking heavy rainfall occurred in the Zhengzhou region, Henan province, China, an inland densely-populated region with a total area of 7600 km2, 12.7 million residents, and a 79.1% urbanization rate. The region is located in a semiarid area and is known for its relatively low average annual precipitation. This unexpected heavy rainfall led to an extreme urban flood, causing massive injuries to the public and losses in critical infrastructure systems, with a death toll of 380; nearly two million people were affected. Very quickly, this apocalyptic event in central China drew extensive attention globally. Using 1.32 billion mobile phone signaling records generated by 4.35 million people during 720 Zhengzhou flood event, researchers from Peking University, Henan University, and Key National Geomatics Center of China jointly analyzed how people's mobility responded to this extreme urban flood disaster in 2021 summer.

Owing to the growing availability of mobile phone big data and advanced data mining techniques, we can now uncover more details regarding how people collectively moved and responded to this unprecedented urban flood disaster. said Professor Pengjun Zhao, the lead author of the study and the Dean of the School of Urban Planning and Design from Peking University.

1. Who is more vulnerable to the impact of this flooding event?

By grouping data based on traveler's gender and age, the study found that there were significant differences in the mobility resilience of different groups, with female, adolescent under 18 years old, and older adults over 60 years old exhibiting relatively lower resilience and therefore being more likely to be affected by flooding. The study highlights the importance of considering demographic data in disaster planning and response efforts, as certain groups may require targeted support and resources in order to effectively mitigate the impact of disasters

The result quantitatively illustrates the probability of maintaining the usual travel frequency in these population groups is much lower than other groups during the event, which explains their lower resilience level and insufficient recovery. said Prof. Zhao.

2. Counterintuitive resilience patterns in human mobility

Additionally, by analyzing the changes of mobility in various geographical scales, the study further unraveled four distinct patterns of human mobility (Fig. 1). Of these modes, three abnormalities were found, namely reversed bathtub curve, ever-decreasing curve, and ever-increasing curve. Together, these abnormal patterns account about 50% of the total area.

These abnormal resilience patterns indicate unusual collective mobility behaviors in response to this severe disaster. Taking the inflow as an example, the reversed bathtub pattern confirms that this flood disaster stimulates inflow mobility instead of suppressing it in those places " said Dr. Junqing Tang, the first author of this study, Assistant Professor at the School of Urban Planning and Design. " Meanwhile, in the recovery stage, the high mobility inflow dissipates to a lower level. This could reflect disaster avoidance behaviors in which people temporarily alter their travel route choices to agglomerate at certain new spots during the flood, but after the event, they shift back to their regular routes. " he added.

3. Are these abnormal resilience patterns associated with traveler's characteristics?

The research team further explored the association between the heterogeneous resilience patterns and traveler's gender and age attributes. The results indicate that both normal and abnormal mobility resilience patterns are not essentially associated with either gender or age. This particular finding implies that on a collective scale whether the dynamic human movements in response to urban floods follow a normal or abnormal resilience pattern cannot be explained by their gender or age attributes, indicating that a universal behavioral mechanism of disaster-avoidance responses might exist across populations. Given the common association between travel behaviors and traveler's socio-demographical characteristics, evidence here provide a potential "heads-up" for probing unusual human mobility during flood-induced emergencies.

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41925003 & 42130402), Start-up Funding for New Faculty at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School (1270110033), and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515110537).

See the article:

Resilience patterns of human mobility in response to extreme urban floods https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwad097

National Science Review

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New study reveals the resilience patterns of human mobility in ... - EurekAlert