Excel is fundamentally different to LLMs because it doesn’t generate anything. It just calculates stuff in a table, every calculation is traceable and you can backtrack to the source of each input.
LLMs calculate the next most likely token based on what they were trained on and it’s impossible to tell exactly where it got the info from. LLMs don’t even know that themselves, you can ask for a source but 90% of the time they just generate a non-working link in return. It has to be that way or else LLMs could only reproduce tokens that were in their training set verbatim, like a giant database search engine.
Excel is why Office rules the world. It’s the finest spreadsheet program out there, best in class, and here’s the thing, it never changes. You can trust Excel with your business data. Your employees know how to use it and what to expect. Power users can write their own code.
Been using M$ since 3.11. Hell, even tried 2.0 a few times. I can bag on about anything they’ve done, but not Excel.
I remember reading that that too no longer is the case as Excel also added some new AI features that makes it just as unreliable somehow. Don’t ask for a source, I remember reading it like 2 weeks ago
Read that too, but there’s no way in hell MS won’t allow that to be turned off in Excel, and it’s likely opt-in. They are not about to kill their cash cow no matter how hard they’re pushing AI.
Eeehh, have you been paying attention? MS has been doing a godunholy amount of stupid things lately, like pushing win11 which requires new hardware which pushes people to Linux.
This too, it wouldn’t surprise me, will be pushed down everyone’s throats
LLMs are like Excel. They’re not great at most things but can handle lost things you throw at it.
Excel doesn’t hallucinate.
Well, they’ve added copilot to it now right? So I reckon it probably does
Excel is fundamentally different to LLMs because it doesn’t generate anything. It just calculates stuff in a table, every calculation is traceable and you can backtrack to the source of each input.
LLMs calculate the next most likely token based on what they were trained on and it’s impossible to tell exactly where it got the info from. LLMs don’t even know that themselves, you can ask for a source but 90% of the time they just generate a non-working link in return. It has to be that way or else LLMs could only reproduce tokens that were in their training set verbatim, like a giant database search engine.
The Excel function “flash fill” is an example of excel “guessing” the user intent and automatically creating output based on a few examples.
It is probably still “traceable”, though.
It does now! Because what everybody needed was unreliable calculations in their math software!
Excel is why Office rules the world. It’s the finest spreadsheet program out there, best in class, and here’s the thing, it never changes. You can trust Excel with your business data. Your employees know how to use it and what to expect. Power users can write their own code.
Been using M$ since 3.11. Hell, even tried 2.0 a few times. I can bag on about anything they’ve done, but not Excel.
Well there is the automatic date guessing, and that time the NHS lost months of covid data to a row maximum…
But both of those are trivial to avoid if you know you need to
I remember reading that that too no longer is the case as Excel also added some new AI features that makes it just as unreliable somehow. Don’t ask for a source, I remember reading it like 2 weeks ago
Read that too, but there’s no way in hell MS won’t allow that to be turned off in Excel, and it’s likely opt-in. They are not about to kill their cash cow no matter how hard they’re pushing AI.
Eeehh, have you been paying attention? MS has been doing a godunholy amount of stupid things lately, like pushing win11 which requires new hardware which pushes people to Linux.
This too, it wouldn’t surprise me, will be pushed down everyone’s throats
Excel is like a hammer. As long as you use it correctly, it will reliably pound nails, every time.
LLMs are like a golden retriever. It might bring back the ball most of the time, but sometimes it might just take a shit in front of you.