Creating a new list with new second element
The following works, I think
data = {{1, 34}, {2, 54}, {3, 66}, {4, 77}, {5, 92}};
data[[2 ;; 5, 2]] = Differences[data[[All, 2]]];
Output when data is called is
{{1, 34}, {2, 20}, {3, 12}, {4, 11}, {5, 15}}
Adjusting for specific lengths (dimensions of a submatrix to be replaced) is straightforward, e.g.
data[[2 ;; Dimensions[data][[1]], 2]] = Differences[data[[All, 2]]];
ClearAll[f]
f = SubsetMap[Differences @* Prepend[0], {All,2}]
Example:
data = {{1, 34}, {2, 54}, {3, 66}, {4, 77}, {5, 92}} ;
f @ data
{{1, 34}, {2, 20}, {3, 12}, {4, 11}, {5, 15}}