人工智能改善审计过程了么？（RAS2022）
Titie: Is artificial intelligence improving the audit process?
Abstract: How does artificial intelligence (AI) impact audit quality and efficiency? We explore this question by leveraging a unique dataset of more than 310,000 detailed individual resumes for the 36 largest audit firms to identify audit firms’ employment of AI workers. We provide a first look into the AI workforce within the auditing sector. AI workers tend to be male and relatively young and hold mostly but not exclusively technical degrees. Importantly, AI is a centralized function within the firm, with workers concentrating in a handful of teams and geographic locations. Our results show that investing in AI helps improve audit quality, reduces fees, and ultimately displaces human auditors, although the effect on labor takes several years to materialize. Specifically, a one-standard-deviation change in recent AI investments is associated with a 5.0% reduction in the likelihood of an audit restatement, a 0.9% drop in audit fees, and a reduction in the number of accounting employees that reaches 3.6% after three years and 7.1% after four years. Our empirical analyses are supported by in-depth interviews with 17 audit partners representing the eight largest U.S. public accounting firms, which show that (1) AI is developed centrally; (2) AI is widely used in audit; and (3) the primary goal for using AI in audit is improved quality, followed by efficiency
#### 研究动机
人工智能给公司给来很大冲击和改变，但已有研究关于人工智能是否提升公司生产力结论并不一致。一方面由于难以准确测度公司层面的人工智能应用程度，另一方面因为人工智能的影响可能集中在特定行业中，总体上影响较小或为零。本文聚焦于审计行业能够有助于缓解这两个问题。
#### 研究问题
人工智能对审计质量与效率的影响？
#### 研究假说
**Prediction 1:** AI improves audit quality.
**Prediction 2:** AI improves audit efficiency, lowering the cost of the audit product.
**Prediction 3:** AI reduces the audit workforce, especially the entry-level employees
#### 变量度量
人工智能：利用员工简历，通过其工作履历，确定某一时间段就职于某某公司；进一步通过相关的工作描述确定其是否为AI员工
#### 研究设计
#### 基本结果
1.人工智能提升了审计质量（降低了财务重述的概率）
2.人工智能降低了审计收费
3.人工智能替代了部分劳动力工作
While our primary focus is on audit quality, we test two additional hypotheses related to audit process efficiency: that AI helps reduce the costs of the audit product, and that AI helps decrease the reliance of the audit process on human labor. While our results about increased efficiency are more preliminary than our main findings on audit quality, they provide an important complementary perspective to the quality angle.
