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I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

simonwillison.net

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Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#12
post #9

This reminds me of a friend whose company ran a daily perl script that committed every financial transaction of the day to a database. Without the script, the company could literally make no money irrespectively of sales because this database was one piece in a complex system for payment processor interoperability. The script ran in a machine located at the corner of a cubicle and only one employee had the admin pass…

If your mission critical process sits on some on-site box that no-one knows about, copilot being good or not is the least of your problems.

Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#15
post #9

This reminds me of a friend whose company ran a daily perl script that committed every financial transaction of the day to a database. Without the script, the company could literally make no money irrespectively of sales because this database was one piece in a complex system for payment processor interoperability. The script ran in a machine located at the corner of a cubicle and only one employee had the admin pass…

This sort of gimmick is not going to help anyone keeping their job.

Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#16

Brenda has been getting slower over the years -as we all have-, but soon the boss will learn that it was a small price to pay for knowing well how to keep such house of cards from collapsing.

And then the boss will make the decision to outsource her job, to a company that promises the use of AI to make finance better, and faster, and while Brenda is in the unemployment line, someone else thousands of miles away is celebrating a new job

Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#17
Co-pilot and AI has been shoved at the Microsoft Stack in my org for months. Most of the features were disabled or hopelessly bad. It’s cheaper for Microsoft to push this junk and claim they’re doing something, it’s going to improve their stock far more than not doing it, even though it’s basically useless currently.

Another issue is that my org disallows AI transcription bots. It’s a legit security risk if you have some random process recording confidential info because the person was too busy to attend the meeting and take notes themselves. Or possibly they just shirk off the meetings and have AI sit in.

Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#18
post #9

This reminds me of a friend whose company ran a daily perl script that committed every financial transaction of the day to a database. Without the script, the company could literally make no money irrespectively of sales because this database was one piece in a complex system for payment processor interoperability. The script ran in a machine located at the corner of a cubicle and only one employee had the admin pass…

An old colleague and friend used to print out a 30 page perl script he wrote to do almost exactly this in this scenario. A stapled copy could always be found on his dining room table.

Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#19

Nay-sayers need to decide whether they fear AI because AI is dumb and will fuckup or because AI is smart and will take over.

Both are valid concerns, no need to decide. Take the USA: They are currently lead by a patently dumb president who fucks up the global economy, and at the same time they are powerful enough to do so!

For a more serious example, consider the Paperclip Problem[0] for a very smart system that destroys the world due to very dumb behaviour.

[0]: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ai-and-paperclip-problem

Re: I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel

#20
post #15
post #9

This reminds me of a friend whose company ran a daily perl script that committed every financial transaction of the day to a database. Without the script, the company could literally make no money irrespectively of sales because this database was one piece in a complex system for payment processor interoperability. The script ran in a machine located at the corner of a cubicle and only one employee had the admin pass…

This sort of gimmick is not going to help anyone keeping their job.

Sadly, nah. It works.
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