Ep. 232: Mfon Akpan and Scott Dell - ChatGPT & AI's Future

Dive into the fast-paced and exciting world of artificial
intelligence with our podcast series! Join our expert guests, Dr.
Mfon Akpan and Dr. Scott Dell, as they unravel the mysteries of
AI, explore the cutting-edge developments in language models like
ChatGPT, and discuss the massive impact of these technologies on
industries like accounting. From the thrilling acceleration of AI
adaptation to ethical concerns and security implications, this
podcast explores it all. Tune in to stay at the forefront of one
of the hottest topics in technology today!


Connect with our speakers:
Dr. Mfon Akpan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmfonakpan/


Dr. Scott Dell - 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drscottcpa/
SF Magazine Article by our speakers


Full Episode Transcript:
Adam:           
Welcome to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and today
we're diving deep into the world of AI. A subject that has been
making waves across industries. Transforming the way we work,
communicate, and think. With me are our esteemed guests; Dr. Mfon
Akpan, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Methodist University.
And Dr. Scott Dell, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Francis
Marion University. They bring a wealth of knowledge and insights
into AI's history, its current impact, and what's on the
horizon. 


 


We'll discuss everything from AI's phenomenal growth; to its
applications, ethics, security concerns, and much more. So buckle
up and let's embark on this fascinating journey into the digital
revolution.


 





Adam:           
Mfon and Scott, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
We're really excited we're going to be talking about AI and
ChatGPT, and all that comes underneath that. And we're really
excited to have this because this is a very hot topic, and people
are talking about it. You see articles about it every day. You
see updates, you see leaders writing letters saying, "Let's stop
all AI for six months." Et cetera. Maybe we could just start at a
high level. What is AI? What are these chat bots? What are these
things doing for us?


 


Scott:           
  Amazing tool, and thank you for having us. It's a
pleasure to be here and to share. I'll kick things off, Mfon, if
it's all right. This artificial intelligence has been around for
over 60 years. So you say, "Wait a minute, why is it so new?"


 


Well, what's new is the capabilities because of the computing
power we now have. And the tool is amazing; it is changing life
as we know it. We haven't seen the likes of this since the
printing press. It's an environment that can really do things,
change work, augment work, replace work, but makes things better.
Your thoughts, Mfon?


 


Mfon:           
 Yes, and I think some of the excitement around it
is that we haven't seen this type of growth, in a platform as
well. So you think about it was released, November 30th 2022.
Five days, the platform got a million users. So you think about
in 2010, it took Instagram two and a half months to get to a
million users. So there's a lot of excitement, and then there's a
lot of acceleration and speed around the platform, as well.


 


Scott:           
  As a follow up to that, 100 million users mark
was reached in two months. Compared to TikTok, I think, it was
nine months to get that far, that fast. So it has been an amazing
adaptation of the technology.


 


Adam:           
So maybe we can talk a little bit about how does it work. And,
then, from there, maybe, talk about what benefits it may have for
the accounting profession as a whole.


 


Mfon:           
 Well, it's a language model, so it has an
interface. So you're able to go to the platform, you go to the
website, and you're able to ask it questions, or you can copy and
paste information and ask it to do things. So from the profession
side, if you're asking it to solve problems. You can ask it to
solve a problem, or you can have it write an email, write a
letter, it can produce content for you.


 


Scott:           
  And as Mfon mentioned, it is an LLM, one of those
three-letter acronyms, a large language model. But what it does
is it projects words. So it looks at the previous word and it
says, "Mm, what would the next logical word be?" 


 


                 
      Which, sometimes, if you've ever played the
game of telephone, as a kid, sometimes, you get to the end of
that line and nothing resembles how it started out. And that
sometimes happens, as well, with the ChatGPT and GPT-4
environment. Because it is projecting with probabilities, "Yep, I
think this is the next word." And sometimes it's dead wrong. It's
called hallucinating, it's the actual technical term.


 


Mfon:           
 It does hallucinate. But what's so fascinating
when you use it, it is projecting. But I guess it feels like you
get the impression that it's thinking, even though it's not
thinking. So you can ask it questions and it will give you
answers, so there's that interaction. But it is projecting and it
does, sometimes, hallucinate, or make up answers, give you false
information. 


 


Scott:           
  And the fear I really have, in the hands of
professionals, we can, probably, take a look and say, "Oh, this
isn't quite right. This is illogical." But for a novice, and for
newbies like our students, they will look at this and say, "The
English is so good. It just flows so, logically, it must be
right." And it's not, although, often enough it is right. So
there's a balance.


 


Adam:           
Yes, so talking about people using it. Obviously corporations,
people within corporations, within organizations, are using it.
Within the accounting profession are using it, and people are
having to create policies. There are new workarounds coming out
there. People are saying, "Okay, you can use this, but you can
use it for that."


 


I saw one example, where somebody put in a fake balance sheet and
said, "Analyze this for me." And it gave a really interesting
analysis. Then, you have to worry, "Oh, am I putting somebody's
data into this thing?" And you have to worry about those things.
And, so, how can this tool be used for management accounting? In
the accounting space, obviously, without giving away too much
personal data?


 


Scott:           
  Security consciousness is we need to be there. I
mean, you're hearing about the deepfakes. I just heard about a
scandal in Hong Kong, a banker that sent millions of dollars,
based on what so...