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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

#191

Post by maccard »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #140
maccard wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere I’ve ever worked has had that mission critical box. At one of my jobs we had a server rack with UPS, etc, all the usual business. On the floor next to it was a dell desktop with a piece of paper on it that said “do not turn off”. It had our source control server in it, and the power button didn’t work. We did eventually move it to something more sensible but we had that for a long time

with only one person on earth being able to access it? so if that person is hit by a car everything goes down?

yeah. I mean, someone else would _eventually_ figure it out. There wasn't full disk encryption or anyhting on it, so if the guy got hit by a bus, and the machien turned off we probably would have just imaged the disk and got it running in a VM.

But we didn't (and nobody was hit by a bus)

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

#192

Post by Esophagus4 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #182
Esophagus4 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it doesn’t have to be as accurate as a human to be a helpful tool. That is precisely why we have humans in the loop for so many AI applications. If [AI + human reviewer to correct it] is some multiple more efficient than [human alone], there is still plenty of value.

> Because it doesn’t have to be as accurate as a human to be a helpful tool. I disagree. If something can't be as accurate as a (good) human, then it's useless to me. I'll just ask the human instead, because I know that the human is going to be worth listening to.

Autopilot in airplanes is a good example to disprove that.

Good in most conditions. Not as good as a human. Which is why we still have skilled pilots flying planes, assisted by autopilot.

We don’t say “it’s not as good as a human, so stuff it.”

We say, “it’s great in most conditions. And humans are trained how to leverage it effectively and trained to fly when it cannot be used.”

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

#193

Post by Esophagus4 »

buellerbueller wrote: post #126
Esophagus4 wrote: post #25

Hmmm the Brendas I know look a little different. “There are two Brendas - their job is to make spreadsheets in the Finance department. Well, not quite - they add the months and categories to empty spreadsheets, then they ask the other departments to fill in their sales numbers every month so it can be presented to management. “The two Brendas don’t seem to talk, otherwise they would realize that they’re both asking e…

Not every topic on HN needs a contrarian's hot take.

Well that wasn’t very nice.

Do you have anything to say other than, “I don’t need to hear what you have to say”?

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

#194

Post by anonzzzies »

dsr_ wrote: post #80
elevatortrim wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No contradiction here: When we say “machine”, we mean deterministic algorithms and predictable mechanisms. Generative AI is neither of those things (in theory it is deterministic but not for any practical applications). If we order by predictability: Quick Sort > Brenda > Gen AI

There are two kinds of reliability: Machine reliability does the same thing the same way every time. If there's an error on some input, it will always make that error on that input, and somebody can investigate it and fix it, and then it will never make that error again. Human reliability does the job even when there are weird variances or things nobody bothered to check for. If the printer runs out of paper, the hum…

> . If the printer runs out of paper, the human goes to the supply cabinet and gets out paper and if there is no paper the human decides

Sure, these humans exists, but the others, that I happen to encounter every day unfortunately, are the ones that go into broken mode immediately when something is unexpected. Today I ordered something they ran out of and the girl behind the counter just stared in The Deep not having a clue what to do now. Do or say. Or yesterday at dinner, the PoS (on batteries) ran out of power when I tried to pay for dinner. The guy just walked off and went outside for a smoke. I stood there with waiting to pay. The owner apologized and fixed it after a while but I am saying, the employee who runs out of paper and then finds and puts more paper in is not very ... common... In the real world.

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

#195

Post by delaminator »

quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #39

I find the contrast between two narratives around technology use so fascinating: 1. We advocate automation because people like Brenda are error-prone and machines are perfect. 2. We disavow AI because people like Brenda are perfect and the machine is error-prone. These aren't contradictions because we only advocate for automation in limited contexts: when the task is understandable, the execution is reliable, the pro…

Brenda has years (hopefully) of institutional knowledge and transferrable skills.

"hmm, those sales don't look right, that profit margin is unusually high for November"

"Last time I used vlookup I forgot to sort the column first"

"Wait, Bob left the company last month, how can he still be filing expenses"

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

#197

Post by dogleash »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #25

Hmmm the Brendas I know look a little different. “There are two Brendas - their job is to make spreadsheets in the Finance department. Well, not quite - they add the months and categories to empty spreadsheets, then they ask the other departments to fill in their sales numbers every month so it can be presented to management. “The two Brendas don’t seem to talk, otherwise they would realize that they’re both asking e…

You've lost the plot and are just trauma dumping.

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

#199

Post by jimbokun »

quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #39

I find the contrast between two narratives around technology use so fascinating: 1. We advocate automation because people like Brenda are error-prone and machines are perfect. 2. We disavow AI because people like Brenda are perfect and the machine is error-prone. These aren't contradictions because we only advocate for automation in limited contexts: when the task is understandable, the execution is reliable, the pro…

I mean you answer your own question.

Automation implies determinism. It reliable gives you the same predictable output for a given input, over and over again.

AI is non deterministic by design. You never quite no for sure what it's going to give you. Which is what makes it powerful. But also makes it higher risk.

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

#200

Post by Esophagus4 »

martin-t wrote: post #118
Esophagus4 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always: If you don’t automate it: 1a) your company keeps you hanging on forever maintaining the same widget until the end of time OR 1b) more likely, someone realizes your job should be automated and lays you off at some point down the road If you do automate it 2a) your company thanks you then fires you OR 2b) you are now assigned to automate more stuff as you’ve proven that you are more valuable to the company…

Yes, but notice what you are describing are all negative incentives. When automation produces value for the company, the people automating it should capture a chunk of that value _as a matter of course_. Even if you argue that you can then negotiate better compensation: 1) That is uncertain and delayed reward - and only if other people feel like it, it's not automatic. 2) The reward stops if you get fired or leave, d…

My knee jerk reaction is to disagree, but on second thought, I’m open to hearing the argument.

What would that look like in practice?

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