I think it would be infinitely better for an LLM to walk a user through the use of the formula in their specific use case rather than do it for them… but that won’t sell as well because most people don’t want to learn to use a spreadsheet they just want to do a thing and move on to something else. This is how it is sold and this is why it is used, in most cases. It’s not a hammer that people misused despite there being nothing in the sales material about it’s usefulness as a bludgeoning device against other humans. LLMs, spreadsheet copilot included, is commonly packaged and sold as a magic solution that will just do the work for you, with an asterisk and fine print stating that it’s for entertainment purposes only and that whoever isn’t liable for any false information or whatever bullshit clause they come up with. People use it as it is sold to them and that’s what worries me.

another optional tool at users’ disposal.

I just had my place of work upgrade me to Windows 11 this week. In order to install office, I was directed by Microsoft to download the “Office 365 Copilot” app which downloaded the office installer. Copilot is not subtle. It may be technically optional but good lord does it want you to know about and use it for everything.

And no, I didn’t try it yet. I will likely be trying it and Gemini soon out of curiosity. Last time I tried to use it I was given hallucinated nonexistant python modules and powershell commands that wasted my time. It’s been a year or so though.

it’s not a replacement for a human brain, it’s an assistant.

This is what I think AI and automation is generally good at and should be used for - mitigating unpleasant or repetitive work so that the focus of the user is productivity/creativity.

This is what this integration is for - it’s not a replacement for a human brain, it’s an assistant. As are all LLMs.

The context is something we disagree on wholeheartedly. Those funding and fundraising for AI and an enormous subset of those using are not looking to use AI in the way we are talking about. The prior are hoping to use AI to extract value from it at the expense of people who would otherwise need to be paid, or they and claim it can do anything and everything. Those using it, many of them, do not have a sufficient understanding to comprehend the solution. They are basically “vibe coding”. Tell the LLM to do something they aren’t knowledgeable about, then keep telling it to fix the problems until they don’t see problems anymore. Yes, spreadsheet formulas are likely simpler than an app but I know people who use AI for Google Sheets and they rarely test any results, let alone rigorously.

Anecdotal, sure, but I don’t have enough faith in humanity to presume everyone else is doing something wildly different.

Edit: To expand, LLMs specifically, are what I consider to be the worst side of “AI”. You can use ML and neural networks to create “AI” (self altering, alien blackbox algorithms) to become proficient in analyzing information and solving problems. LLMs create a situation where the model appears intelligent because it knows how to mimic language… and so now we pretend like it can do whatever people can do.

That dude’s a beast.

I think the concern is that you can come up with a number of formulas that will get correct answers for some combinations of values and not others.

If you do not understand the logic of the formula, and what each function does, how do you verify they are correct and will always give you the results you think they will? Double check every result in its entirety?

I feel you. I’m fearful of being so open about my diagnosis though. These days I “wear so many hats” for my job. Unfortunately I have to be support for a number of related systems, script automations, and a tons of other stuff. Recently I’ve felt like this last project has taken forever and I’ve been hard on myself because of it.

Only in the last week or so did I realize that I’m writing scripts far more complex than ever before and I don’t get into a flow state until everyone else goes home but then it’s time for me to go home. Half of my normal work time is trying to get back into the mindset I need to continue building the project. Then I have to focus on different project for a few days and WTF was I doing with that first project?