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Show HN: Sourcetable – AI Spreadsheet and Data Platform

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Show HN: Sourcetable – AI Spreadsheet and Data Platform

#52

Post by mceoin »

halfcat wrote: post #42

I always wonder where these spreadsheet/database apps will land. Usually it falls flat for one of a few reasons I’ve observed: - Fundamental gap in skillset, in that if you want to have ultimate flexibility to slice and dice the data and report on whatever you’re seeking, you’ve ultimately needed SQL skills in the past (which isn’t rocket science, but also isn’t something most accounting users can run with on their o…

This is 100% the correct insight in my experience.

TL;DR, most technical people massively overestimate the technical / data abilities of regular spreadsheet users. We find simple use cases are best, and with each new LLM release the UX around more complex data improves significantly.

The reason we chose to build as a full-blown spreadsheet instead of just a table-based solution was that we saw that most people want the flexibility of a regular spreadsheet, but access to their (structured) business data. Table-based solutions wedge you into AI and you can never get out of that.

Re: Show HN: Sourcetable – AI Spreadsheet and Data Platform

#54

Post by longstaff2009 »

Thats a spicy example dataset!

I like that it's able to infer information from the context of the cells, e.g. being able to run a query across continents when the data only contains the country.

Being able to ask it to interpret the results is helpful, it would be cool if it automatically told you if there was enough data to have statistical significance in the conclusions it was presenting.

Re: Show HN: Sourcetable – AI Spreadsheet and Data Platform

#55

Post by mceoin »

longstaff2009 wrote: post #54

Thats a spicy example dataset! I like that it's able to infer information from the context of the cells, e.g. being able to run a query across continents when the data only contains the country. Being able to ask it to interpret the results is helpful, it would be cool if it automatically told you if there was enough data to have statistical significance in the conclusions it was presenting.

You may see that we try to suggest follow-up questions or question improvements where we think better context-in will result in a better result-out.

Curious what will happen if you modify the question to be more explicit?

I have seen that PMs and data-trained folk tend to be very articulate in asking for exactly what they want and that tends to lead to significantly better LLM responses.

Re: Show HN: Sourcetable – AI Spreadsheet and Data Platform

#56

Post by SoulAuctioneer »

halfcat wrote: post #42

I always wonder where these spreadsheet/database apps will land. Usually it falls flat for one of a few reasons I’ve observed: - Fundamental gap in skillset, in that if you want to have ultimate flexibility to slice and dice the data and report on whatever you’re seeking, you’ve ultimately needed SQL skills in the past (which isn’t rocket science, but also isn’t something most accounting users can run with on their o…

Agree with you, and we're definitely trying to thread the needle!

We're generating the SQL to answer natural language questions, so folks can just get answers and results tables if that's all they need, with the option for power users to fiddle with the SQL either directly or via a query editor GUI.

There's a ton of use cases for working with unstructured and semi-structured data and that's coming down the pipe!

Re: Show HN: Sourcetable – AI Spreadsheet and Data Platform

#57

Post by Brajeshwar »

dioptre wrote: post #49
SoulAuctioneer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for reporting! Taking a look now.

Hey do you mind removing this comment? Seems it might have caused us to be blacklisted?

I'm sorry, I've missed the "delete" window. But may I know how a comment here (after it being blacklisted) about it being blacklisted will be the reason to be blacklisted?
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