The Point We Will Never See

So, we've finally reached the fourth and final article in this series. Unlike the previous three, this one isn't about the next few years or even the next few decades. Instead, I'd like to look much further ahead—so far that neither you nor I will ever see this future ourselves. That isn't because something catastrophic will happen, but simply because it lies far beyond the length of a human life. Whether it takes five hundred years, five thousand years or even longer isn't really important. The exact timeline doesn't matter. What matters is the direction.

Some people may immediately ask why it's worth thinking about something so distant. If none of us will ever experience this world, why spend time discussing it? For me, the answer is actually very simple. When you're trying to understand where something is going, it's often helpful to look at the destination first. Imagine looking at a road that disappears beyond the horizon. If you can only see the first few hundred metres, every turn appears random. But once you know where the road eventually leads, those same turns suddenly begin to make sense. That's exactly how I look at the future. I'm not trying to predict every technological breakthrough or guess exactly what year something will happen. I'm simply trying to understand the direction in which humanity seems to be moving.

Everything we've discussed in the previous articles eventually leads here. We started by talking about artificial intelligence, then looked at software engineering and how our profession is already beginning to change. Those weren't isolated topics. They were individual pieces of a much larger picture. The more I thought about them, the more I realised they all pointed towards the same destination. This article is an attempt to describe that destination as I currently see it.

Before we continue, I'd like to make one thing very clear. Everything you're about to read is my personal opinion. I don't claim that these predictions will happen exactly as I describe them. Some of them may never happen at all. Others may happen much sooner than I expect. The purpose of this article isn't to convince you that I'm right. It's simply to explain how I arrived at these conclusions. If you disagree with them, that's perfectly fine. In fact, I'd encourage you to question every idea instead of accepting it just because you've read it here.

Why Look So Far Ahead?

The interesting thing about technological progress is that we usually notice it only after it has already happened. While we're living through it, every new invention feels like another small improvement. A slightly faster computer. A slightly better phone. A slightly smarter piece of software. Only years later do we realise that all those small improvements were actually part of a much bigger transformation. Looking back, the pattern becomes obvious. Looking forward, it's much harder to see.

That's why I think it's useful to occasionally step away from today's headlines and ask a much larger question. If artificial intelligence continues to develop, if computers continue becoming more capable and if automation keeps expanding into new areas of our lives, where does all of this eventually lead? Not next year. Not in ten years. But eventually.

I don't believe anyone can answer that question with certainty. History has taught us to be very careful whenever someone claims they know exactly what the future will look like. At the same time, history also shows that completely ignoring the long-term direction is just as dangerous. Most revolutionary changes seemed impossible until they became ordinary.

"It Was Impossible, but They Did It"

There is one sentence that completely changed the way I think about technology.

It was impossible, but they did it.

Those words may sound simple, but for me they became the foundation of everything you're about to read. Before ChatGPT appeared, I genuinely didn't believe something like it could exist. Of course, I expected computers to become faster. I expected better software, better automation and better search engines. That's the natural direction technology has always followed. But I never imagined sitting in front of a computer and having a conversation that actually helped me solve engineering problems, organise ideas or challenge my own thinking. If someone had shown me today's AI a few years earlier, I probably wouldn't have believed it was real.

Looking back, I realised I had underestimated something. Actually, I had underestimated two things.

The first was how much knowledge humanity had already published on the Internet. Millions of books, research papers, technical articles, forums, documentation and discussions had quietly accumulated over decades. I knew they existed, of course, but I never really appreciated what would happen if one system could learn from all of them at once.

Then another thought occurred to me, and I think it's even more important than the first one. As enormous as the Internet feels today, it still represents only a fraction of humanity's knowledge. There is an unbelievable amount of experience that has never been written down anywhere. It exists only in people's minds.

Changing the Way I Think

Think about almost any profession. An experienced engineer solves problems using intuition developed over decades. A doctor often recognises patterns that can't be found in medical textbooks. Lawyers rely on years of practical experience that never appears in public documents. The same is true for accountants, architects, scientists and countless other specialists. A huge part of human knowledge still exists only inside people's heads. Artificial intelligence hasn't learned all of that yet.

That's when my perspective changed completely. If today's AI can already do everything we've seen while learning from only part of humanity's knowledge, then what happens when that limitation gradually disappears? I don't know the answer, and I don't think anyone else does either. But I know one thing with certainty: I've already been wrong once. I already believed something was impossible. Then they did it.

Since then, I've become much more careful whenever I hear someone confidently say, "That will never happen." Maybe they're right. Maybe they aren't. But I've stopped using the word impossible quite so easily. Artificial intelligence taught me that reality has a habit of moving much faster than our imagination. Things we dismiss today often become ordinary much sooner than we expect.

Everything that follows in this article grows from that single realisation. Rather than trying to predict specific technologies, I'd like to explore something much broader. If this direction continues, what could society eventually become? I think the easiest way to answer that question isn't by starting with technology itself, but by looking at people. More specifically, by looking at the professions that make our society work today.

So let's begin with accounting.