When technology changes how work gets done, we need to rethink how we measure ability, contribution, and value.
Recently, I came across a story about a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Apparently, the professor had been receiving emails that were becoming increasingly perfect: grammatically correct, fluent, well-structured, and almost entirely free of mistakes. Then one day, he finally received an email containing grammatical errors. His reaction was reportedly:
“Oh, this was written by a real person!”
I found the story amusing, but it also captured something about the world we are entering.
When AI can easily write a grammatically perfect email or produce a well-structured essay, some of the standards we have taken for granted are beginning to change.
Schools are now facing a difficult question: How should student assignments be evaluated? If an essay can be generated by AI, should we focus on what students have written, or on what they have actually understood?
It occurred to me that similar questions have been emerging in the workplace and in business for quite some time.
School assignments and workplace layoffs may seem like two very different subjects. Yet they point to the same underlying question:
When the tools and methods used to complete a task change, how should we measure a person's real value?
1. When Every Essay Looks Perfect, What Are We Really Evaluating?
Traditionally, when evaluating a student's essay, we look at whether the language is fluent, the grammar is correct, the structure is coherent, and the arguments are clearly presented.
These standards certainly matter. Writing is a skill that needs to be developed through practice.
But AI can now generate a fluent, well-structured essay in a very short time. If dozens of essays contain almost no grammatical errors, how can teachers distinguish between students' actual abilities?
Perhaps the more important question is: What is the assignment really intended to achieve?
If the goal is to develop language skills, the student's own writing process still matters. But if the goal is to help students understand an issue, analyze information, and propose solutions, evaluation cannot stop at whether the writing looks polished.
We also need to ask:
- Does the student genuinely understand the question?
- Can they find reliable information and supporting evidence?
- Have they developed their own judgment?
- Is their proposed solution reasonable and practical?
- Can they explain how they arrived at their conclusions?
A perfect essay does not necessarily mean that a student has genuinely understood the subject.
AI can help students organize their thoughts and improve their writing, but it cannot replace genuine understanding. Even when AI is involved, students should know why they chose a particular argument, how to assess the reliability of information, and how to support their conclusions.
- The challenge facing education is therefore not simply how to detect AI-generated writing. It is about reconsidering what we actually want students to learn through their assignments.
2. From the Abacus to the Computer: Skills That Once Mattered Can Lose Their Value
When I started my first job at a factory, I met a chief accountant who was exceptionally skilled with the abacus. He was famous for being able to operate an abacus with both hands.
（Traditional Chinese abacus (suanpan), a calculating tool widely used in China during the 1980s before electronic calculators and computers became commonplace.）
At that time, this was regarded as an impressive professional skill.
Looking back, it also reminds me how much the tools of accounting have changed over the decades.
Decades have passed since then. I have also gone through professional accounting studies with ACCA, which gave me a deeper understanding of corporate financial management.
Looking back, I would question whether exceptional abacus skills alone could demonstrate all the professional abilities required of a chief accountant.
Of course, I do not know the full professional background of that particular accountant, and it would be unfair to judge his capabilities by today's standards. In that era, speed and accuracy with an abacus could certainly have been important professional advantages.
But then calculators, computers, and accounting software became widely available.
No matter how fast or skillfully someone could use an abacus, that ability could no longer provide the same professional advantage it once had.
This does not mean that the abacus had no value, or that the effort people invested in learning it was wasted. It means that the tools changed, and society's expectations of professional skills changed with them.
I also remember that many accountants working in factories in the past did not necessarily have formal accounting qualifications. Some learned their profession through years of practical experience, gradually becoming familiar with purchasing, production, inventory, sales, costs, and cash flow.
Their professional knowledge came not simply from using an abacus or recording transactions, but from understanding how a business actually operated.
Today, as computers and AI take over more standardized calculations and data-processing tasks, we need to reconsider where the real value of accounting work lies.
3. From Accounting Entries to Financial Statements: The Real Questions Lie Behind the Numbers
I have worked in finance and studied ACCA, so I understand that the responsibilities of a chief accountant in a large company go far beyond entering vouchers into an accounting system or making sure the books balance.
Accounting entries provide the foundation for recording business transactions. Financial statements are important outputs that reflect a company's financial position and operating performance.
- Tax authorities need information such as revenue and profits to administer taxation.
- Business leaders need to understand whether cash flow is sufficient, how much liquidity remains, and whether the company has enough resources to support its next stage of operations.
- Investors want to assess the company's performance, profitability, and financial health.
Who entered the accounting vouchers or organized the data is not the ultimate purpose of this work.
Of course, the underlying records must be complete, accurate, and reliable. Without trustworthy business records, financial statements cannot be trusted either.
But the value of accounting should not stop at producing financial statements.
The more important questions often lie behind the numbers:
- Why has revenue increased while cash flow has not improved?
- Why does the company report a profit but still struggle with cash shortages?
- Which products appear to sell well but actually generate very little profit?
- Why is inventory increasing while working capital is becoming less efficient?
- Which costs can be optimized? Where are the operational risks?
Answering these questions requires professional knowledge, business understanding, and sound judgment. Financial information must also be connected with what is actually happening in the business.
Financial statements tell us what has happened. Analysis helps us understand why it happened. Management decisions determine what should happen next.
If AI can help accountants handle much of the routine work involved in organizing vouchers, entering data, and preparing reports, professionals should be able to devote more attention to analysis, verification, risk management, and improving business operations.
This does not mean that the value of accounting is disappearing. It means that the focus of professional value can move to a different level.
4. AI Is Changing Not Only Our Tools, but Also How We Measure Ability
When we look at student assignments, the abacus, and accounting work together, we can see a common pattern.
In the past, we often judged a person's ability by the tools they had mastered and the tasks they could perform.
Being skilled with an abacus, knowing how to use accounting software, writing a polished essay, or completing a task efficiently were all once important signs of competence.
But as technology advances, the way these tasks are completed is changing.
| Traditional skill or measure | What changed | What matters more now |
|---|---|---|
| Skilled use of an abacus | Calculators and computers | Understanding and applying the results |
| Manual entry of accounting vouchers | Accounting software and AI | Accurate financial information and the ability to identify business problems |
| Writing a grammatically perfect essay | AI-assisted writing | Understanding, independent thinking, and sound judgment |
| Performing routine tasks efficiently | AI automation | Solving real problems and producing useful results |
This does not mean that the skills of the past are now meaningless.
The abacus can develop calculation skills. Manual bookkeeping can help people understand accounting relationships. Writing can strengthen language and logical thinking.
But we should not mistake a tool that was once useful for a permanent professional advantage.
Tools determine how we perform a task. Professional ability determines whether we understand the problem behind it.
AI is making many tasks that once required considerable time and experience much easier to complete. It is changing not only our workflows, but also the way we measure the value of work.
The real question is no longer how to prove that we can perform a particular operation better than a machine. It is how to use new tools to turn our knowledge and experience into more valuable results.
5. From School Assignments to Job Loss: Rethinking What Truly Creates Value
Today, as discussions about AI and layoffs become increasingly common, many people immediately ask:
- Which jobs will AI replace?
- Which positions will survive?
- What kinds of jobs will still exist in the future?
These are certainly important questions. But I believe another, more fundamental question is often overlooked:
Are the abilities we have relied on in the past still aligned with what this era needs?
Students should not focus only on producing polished essays. They need to understand problems and develop their own judgment.
Accountants should not be satisfied with entering vouchers efficiently. They need to understand the business logic behind financial information.
Employees should not assume that familiarity with particular software or mastery of a specific operation will guarantee long-term career security.
Even for content creators, whether an article is written entirely by a person, created with AI assistance, or generated by AI should not be the only standard by which its value is judged.
What matters more is whether the article addresses a real concern for its readers. Is the information accurate? Are the ideas useful? Does it help readers understand an issue or improve their decisions and actions?
Of course, the authenticity of the author, the reliability of professional sources, and accountability still matter. This is especially important in areas such as finance and healthcare, where fluent writing must never replace fact-checking and professional responsibility.
Whatever tools we use, we should ultimately return to one fundamental question:
What value have we actually created?
As the cost of producing content, organizing data, and completing standardized tasks continues to fall, workload and operational proficiency alone are becoming less reliable sources of long-term competitive advantage.
The abilities worth developing are those that help us understand problems, exercise independent judgment, verify results, and solve real-world challenges.
Conclusion: Embrace Change and Rethink Your Value
From an email containing grammatical errors to student assignments; from a chief accountant skilled with both hands on an abacus to today's AI automation; from corporate financial statements to the changes taking place in the workplace—these seemingly unrelated examples point to the same lesson.
The world keeps changing, and so do society's expectations of skills and value.
In the past, we often spent considerable time learning to master particular tools because the ability to use them represented a scarce and valuable skill.
Today, tools are becoming increasingly accessible. Many tasks that once required years of practice can now be assisted or completed by machines.
What the changing era challenges is not the effort we invested in the past, but some of the standards of value that no longer apply.
We do not need to feel anxious about chasing every new tool. Nor can we expect the world to preserve old ways of working simply because we are familiar with them.
What matters more is taking a fresh look at ourselves: What do we truly know? What problems can we solve? How can the knowledge and experience we have accumulated continue to serve us in a changing environment?
AI itself is not the real threat. The greater risk is that the tools around us have changed while our way of thinking remains stuck in the past.
When tools are no longer scarce, we need to shift our attention from the tools themselves to the goals we want to achieve, from the process of completing tasks to the results we produce, and from simply getting work done to solving meaningful problems.
Embracing change and adapting to the times does not mean blindly chasing technology. It means finding our place in a changing world.
Tools will continue to evolve. But the ability to understand problems, exercise independent judgment, and find solutions is an asset worth developing throughout our lives.