Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

simonwillison.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 346 posts

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

#251

Post by samus »

wat10000 wrote: post #237
stavros wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programs can be very close to 100% reliable when made well. This is a tautology. > I've never seen a calculator come up with the wrong answer when adding two numbers. https://imgz.org/i6XLg7Fz.png > And technically, most bugs are predictable in theory, they just aren't known ahead of time. When we're talking about reliability, it doesn't matter whether a thing can be reliable in theory, it matters whether it's reli…

> > Programs can be very close to 100% reliable when made well. > This is a tautology. No it's not. There are plenty of things that can't be 100% reliable no matter how well they're made. A perfect bridge is still going to break down and eventually fall apart. The best possible motion-activated light is going to have false positives and false negatives because the real world is messy. Light bulbs will burn out no mat…

> No it's not. There are plenty of things that can't be 100% reliable no matter how well they're made. A perfect bridge is still going to break down and eventually fall apart. The best possible motion-activated light is going to have false positives and false negatives because the real world is messy. Light bulbs will burn out no matter how much care and effort goes into them.

All these failure modes are known and predicable, at least statistically

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

#252

Post by blibble »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #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…

> It’s cheaper for Microsoft to push this junk and claim they’re doing something

this has been the microsoft business model for 40 years

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

#253

Post by CheeseFromLidl »

As an aside - isn’t it remarkable that we’ve introduced uncertainty and doubt into the knowledge processing layer? We have decentralised networks that run on Bayesian symbols for server-client models, CPUs that crunch Markov chains and now AI that hallucinates. On Deterministic Turing Machines.

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

#254

Post by raincole »

watwut wrote: post #151
stavros wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think programs are predictable, I have a bridge to sell you. The only relevant metric here is how often each thing makes mistakes. Programs are the most reliable, though far from 100%, humans are much less than that, and LLMs are around the level of humans, depending on the humans and the LLM.

When human makes a mistake, we call it a mistake. When human lies, we call it a lie. In both cases, we blame the human. When LLM does the same, we call it hallucination and blame the human.

Which is the correct reaction, because LLM isn't a human and can't be held accountable.

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

#255

Post by timeinput »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #136
intended wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the luxury of theory. Yes, most situations are terrible compared to what would be if an expert was present to perfect it. Except if there isn’t an expert, and there’s a normal person, how do they know the output is right ?

not sure I get your point?

I think the parent is saying what if the AI made such a terrible mess that the team of imperfect people thought it was fine, but it was just as bad as the terrible mess the team would have created because the team is not capable of evaluating whether it's a good idea or not. (possible follow on consequences -- no one can debug it or figure out if it's a good idea either)

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

#256

Post by victorbjorklund »

maccard wrote: post #191
victorbjorklund wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

and you think that is good practice? sounds pretty terrible.

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

#257

Post by a123b456c »

qazxcvbnmlp wrote: post #212
ItsBob wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as black-and-white as "Brenda good, AI bad". It's much more nuanced than this. When it comes to (traditional) coding, for the most part, when I program a function to do X, every single time I run that function from now until the heat death of the sun, it will always produce Y. Forever! When it does, we understand why, and when it doesn't, we also can understand why it didn't! When I use AI to perform X, ever…

Brenda also needs to put food on the table. If Brenda is 'careless' and messes up we can fire Brenda, because of this Brenda tries not to be carless (also other emotions). However I cannot deprive an AI model of pay because it messed up;

This is the reason the higher-ups in finance who rely on Brenda might continue to rely on Brenda, rather than relying on AI. She offers them accountability.

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

#258

Post by daveguy »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #188
daveguy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be what you meant to say, but it's exactly what you are saying where ${hotLanguage} is the latest automation platform or AI gimmick.

I’m not sure why you’re going down to the mat for hanging onto redundant people putting numbers in spreadsheets. At large companies in particular, there are far too many people who simply turn their widgets - this was the entire point of the tech revolution. Think about how many bookkeepers were needed before Excel. Someone could have made your exact same argument (but it’s just the latest gimmick!) about Excel 30 ye…

I'm not going to the mat for anyone. I'm just saying AI use in spreadsheets is a terrible idea because AI just isn't that good.

Currently I'd put it worse than tearing things up for ${hotLanguage} because at least ${hotLanguage} is deterministic and debuggable.

Honestly, I'm not sure why you're going to the mat for AI in spreadsheets, or why you think it's a good use case, or why you seem to think "automation" doesn't come with overhead of its own. Current iterations of AI are recommendation engines. Even then you better have version control.

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

#259

Post by latchup »

candiddevmike wrote: post #57
Aeolun wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We disavow AI because people like Brenda are perfect and the machine is error-prone. No, no. We disavow AI because our great leaders inexplicably trust it more than Brenda.

I don't understand why generative AI gets a pass at constantly being wrong, but an average worker would be fired if they performed the same way. If a manager needed to constantly correct you or double check your work, you'd be out. Why are we lowering the bar for generative AI?

Multiple reasons:

* Gen AI never disagrees with or objects to boss's ideas, even if they are bad or harmful to the company or others. In fact, it always praises them no matter what. Brenda, being a well-intentioned human being, might object to bad or immoral ideas to prevent harm. Since boss's ego is too fragile to accept criticism, he prefers gen AI.

* Boss is usually not qualified, willing, or free to do Brenda's job to the same quality standard as Brenda. This compels him to pay Brenda and treat her with basic decency, which is a nuisance. Gen AI does not demand fair or decent treatment and (at least for now) is cheaper than Brenda. It can work at any time and under conditions Brenda refuses to. So boss prefers gen AI.

* Brenda takes accountability for and pride in her work, making sure it is of high quality and as free of errors as she can manage. This is wasteful: boss only needs output that is good enough to make it someone else's problem, and as fast as possible. This is exactly what gen AI gives him, so boss prefers gen AI.

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

#260

Post by Esophagus4 »

buellerbueller wrote: post #230
Esophagus4 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”?

I think this repartee encapsulates a huge frustration with the tech sector: > op (as legacy business): BAU > you (as tech): disrupt! disrupt! disrupt! > me: no thank you; that's not necessary > you (as tech): stop being mean! Not wanting your "disruption" is not being un-nice. Your disruption was not asked for in the first place. Forcing it (Uber, Doge, et. al.) on marketplaces, often illegally, and vacuuming it up t…

Ah, I think I understand - this isn't about me... this is about a whole lot more than me.

You just see me as a target to displace that onto. I'm the representative for what you believe is wrong with tech.

Post reply on HN