Information Technology and Ethics/AI Dilemma and Taxation

Artificial Intelligence Moral Dilemma

Artificial Intelligence is growing and evolving every day. There is speculation about limits of AI capabilities. Some extremists predict that by 2030, everyone will be own a self-driving car, and the privilege we have as humans to drive will fade out. With technology rapidly evolving, the sky seems to be the limit. Artificial Intelligence is rapidly advancing in every level like the groups had shown. From transportation to home/service robots, to healthcare and education, to public safety and security as well as the entertainment industry. If AI is advancing at such a fast pace in almost every field.

Artificial Intelligence entities are being extensively programmed through machine learning to perform human tasks as well as be able to make logical and ethical decisions. For example Flippy the robot was put to work last year burgers at CaliBurger restaurant (Weisberger, 2018). Engineers and researchers in robotics are trying to essentially model the human brain in terms of decision-making, coding the robot to do normal human activities, speech intelligence and more.

As AI entities are becoming more human-like by learning to perform human behaviors human decisions, the questions stands whether these entities deserve any moral consideration. If at some point in the future these robotic assistants can walk, converse with you, complete tasks for you, one could possible grow some attachment to the entity and feel that it does warrant some moral consideration. Thinking now, the only things that warrant moral consideration in society today are beings which show the signs of life. This really means anything that talks or moves. A cardboard box is not treated with any moral consideration because it does not have life. A robot can be perceived to warrant moral considerations because after being programmed, it will possess characteristics of life. Most people however, stand on the side that AI entities should not have moral considerations because these entities are completely programmed to do certain things, say certain phrases and react certain ways. One can compare moral consideration of AI entities to that of appliances because they are just constructed by man out of material and just powered by electricity or battery.At this point, because of these reasons the majority of society is ruling that these entities do not warrant moral consideration.

AI Reinventing the World of Taxes

AI is rapidly finding a role across a variety of enterprise functions. Machine learning (ML) can dissect past information to draw insights, whereas AI can look at data patterns. AI forges new partnerships between humans and machines. Humans can apply common sense, moral reasoning, imagination, and compassion to their decision-making, whereas AI excels at locating knowledge, identifying patterns, eliminating bias, and operating with endless capacity. However, it is important to note that, for humans, AI is more of a tool than a solution and augments human capabilities rather than replaces them. In terms of AI, one that we have not discussed yet is AI’s applicability to taxes.

A blogger with PWC, Bjarne Berg, shared five different ways as to how AI is reinventing tax world functions. The first one starts with automation of routine decisions and reporting. This work involves machine learning algorithms that have recently become common in today’s business world as well as our daily lives. These algorithms can categorize sales into the proper jurisdiction for managing sales tax calculations by scanning and analyzing expense reports to determine which deductions are available based on the type and amount of each expense. The second function we are introduced to are enhanced dashboard monitors; AI-enabled dashboards can give tax professionals an instant understanding of issues at glance that can aid decision making. While a simple dashboard may give a tax professional a look at that day’s receipts and sales tax liabilities, a dashboard informed by AI is more dynamic, allowing a tax professional to use the system not only to evaluate the past, but also to anticipate the future. Enhanced dashboard monitors leads to improved forecasting, making forecasting more accurate and faster..

A good example of a real savvy AI algorithm may even be able to look at weather patterns to determine how sales are likely to be impacted regionally and the impact that could have on tax burdens. Advanced scenario analysis will allow us to be able to analyze what would happen to a business’s tax risks and overall structure based on the likely outcome of a local or national election, just by looking at a broad data set of unstructured data and making a probabilistic model out of it. And finally, at the highest level of AI function, machine learning will help with complex decisions in the absence of any real structured data at all. For example, instead of your legal team spending hours poring over a five-hundred-page sales contract, an AI tool can do the same job in a matter of seconds, determining whether the document contains any legal problems or taxation risks.

Similarly, an AI system may keep constant watch over a business’s register of sales actions, making educated decisions about whether the company is at risk of fraud. An AI tool can build its own statistical model based on historical fraud rates while looking for patterns that may be missed by a human examiner.