Comment by ayende
1 day ago
Human accountants also have a very important property: liability.
If a certified accountant told me to do X, I'm covered (at least to the point they would assist in recovering, or I can get compensation through their insurance). If LLM tells me, I'm in a bigger problem.
Most small businesses cannot afford CPAs for everyday tasks. At best a CPA signs off on the annual summaries. Most day to day work is done by bookkeepers who are not CPAs.
In my area (Vermont) the going rate for a good CPA is $200/hr. Bookkeepers are $20-30/hr.
Most small businesses also cant afford the risk of current LLMs putting garbage in their books that, in the best case, has to be cleaned up or redone, or, in the worst case, gets the IRS up your ass
Tuned LLMs will become more accurate than bookkeepers for most day-to-day small business transactions. I think you underestimate the amount of errors that normal bookkeepers tend to make.
There is "LLM misinformation" insurance, a very new branch of cyber insurance.