Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Decision-Making in Accounting and Auditing: Analysis of Related Challenges

This article examines the ethical challenges of using accounting systems based on artificial intelligence for decision-making and presents the correct decision-making in the framework of the four-component model of Rest. The following article contributes to the literature related to accounting as a mental act as well as the function of an intermediary in the socio-material context It does so by providing a solid base of arguments that AI alone, despite its enabling and mediating role in accounting, cannot make ethical accounting decisions because it lacks the necessary preconditions in terms of Rest’s model of antecedents What is more, as AI is bound to pre-set goals and subjected to human made conditions despite its autonomous learning and adaptive practices, it lacks true agency. The topic has been reviewed among 138 articles from 43 prestigious international accounting journals between 2015 and 2020. In the thematic coding of the selected articles, five major ethical challenges of decision-making based on artificial intelligence in accounting were identified, which are: impartiality, privacy, transparency, accountability and reliability. By using the components of the Rest model for ethical decision-making as a stable framework for the discussed structure, the challenges and their relevance for future human-machine cooperation in various offices between humans and artificial intelligence can be discussed. Therefore, in addition to understanding the appropriate decision-making process in accounting based on artificial intelligence, it is suggested that independent and internal audit processes be adapted in terms of skills and knowledge to ensure ethical decision-making based on artificial intelligence