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Two kinds of AI users are emerging

martinalderson.com

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Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#81

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

danpalmer wrote: post #29

I've noticed a huge gap between AI use on greenfield projects and brownfield projects. The first day of working on a greenfield project I can accomplish a week of work. But the second day I can accomplish a few days of work. By the end of the first week I'm getting a 20% productivity gain. I think AI is just allowing everyone to speed-run the innovator's dilemma. Anyone can create a small version of anything, while b…

I find AI great for just greasing the wheels, like if I’m overthinking on a problem or just feel too tired to start on something I know needs doing.

The solutions also help me combat my natural tendency to over-engineer.

It’s also fun getting ChatGPT to quiz me on topics.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#82

Post by irishcoffee »

martinald wrote: post #11
yomismoaqui wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised at the volume of money made by businesses supported by Excel.

Yes. I suspect there are thousands of Excel files that "process" >$1bn/yr out there.

Allow me to introduce to you: ACH. It is truly fascinating.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#83

Post by irishcoffee »

smuhakg wrote: post #37

> On one hand, you have Microsoft's (awful) Copilot integration for Excel (in fairness, the Gemini integration in Google Sheets is also bad). So you can imagine financial directors trying to use it and it making a complete mess of the most simple tasks and never touching it again. Microsoft has spent 30 years designing the most contrived XML-based format for Excel/Word/Powerpoint documents, so that it cannot be parse…

> Microsoft has spent 30 years designing the most contrived XML-based format for Excel/Word/Powerpoint documents, so that it cannot be parsed except by very complicated bespoke applications with hundreds of developers involved.

I had interns use c++ to unzip, parse, and repackage to json a standardized visio doc. I had no say in the standard, but specific blocks meant specific things, etc. The project was successful. The xml was parse-able... at least for our needs. The overall project died a swift death and this tidbit will probably be forgotten forever in the depths of repo heirarchy.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#84

Post by obscurette »

majormajor wrote: post #24
defrost wrote: post #12

The "upside" description: On the other you have a non-technical executive who's got his head round Claude Code and can run e.g. Python locally. I helped one recently almost one-shot converting a 30 sheet mind numbingly complicated Excel financial model to Python with Claude Code. Once the model is in Python, you effectively have a data science team in your pocket with Claude Code. You can easily run Monte Carlo simul…

One of the dirty secrets of a lot of these "code adjacent" areas is that they have very little testing. If a data science team modeled something incorrectly in their simulation, who's gonna catch it? Usually nobody. At least not until it's too late. Will you say "this doesn't look plausible" about the output? Or maybe you'll be too worried about getting chided for "not being data driven" enough. If an exec tells an i…

> If a data science team modeled something incorrectly in their simulation, who's gonna catch it? Usually nobody. At least not until it's too late. Will you say "this doesn't look plausible" about the output?

The local statistics office here recently presented salary statistics claiming that teachers' salaries had unexpectedly increased by 50%. All the press releases went out, and it was only questions raised by the public that forced the statistics office to review and correct the data.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#85

Post by rk06 »

linsomniac wrote: post #23
decimalenough wrote: post #18

> I helped one recently almost one-shot[3] converting a 30 sheet mind numbingly complicated Excel financial model to Python with Claude Code. I'm sure Claude Code will happily one-shot that conversion. It's also virtually guaranteed to have messed up vital parts of the original logic in the process.

It depends on how easily testable the Excel is. If Claude has the ability to run both the Excel and the Python with different inputs, and check the outputs, it's stunningly likely to be able to one-shot it.

where exactly have you seen excel forumalas to have tests?

I have, in my early careers, gone knee deep into Excel macros and worked on c# automation that will create excel sheet run excel macros on it and then save it without the macros.

in the entire process, I saw dozens of date time mistakes in VBA code, but no tests that would catch them...

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#86

Post by Incipient »

stego-tech wrote: post #80
danpalmer wrote: post #29

I've noticed a huge gap between AI use on greenfield projects and brownfield projects. The first day of working on a greenfield project I can accomplish a week of work. But the second day I can accomplish a few days of work. By the end of the first week I'm getting a 20% productivity gain. I think AI is just allowing everyone to speed-run the innovator's dilemma. Anyone can create a small version of anything, while b…

Enterprise IT dinosaur here, seconding this perspective and the author’s. When I needed to bash out a quick Hashicorp Packer buildfile without prior experience beyond a bit of Vault and Terraform, local AI was a godsend at getting me 80% of the way there in seconds. I could read it, edit it, test it, and move much faster than Packer’s own thin “getting started” guide offered. The net result was zero prior knowledge t…

>LLMs really are a game changer for my personal sales pitch of being a single dinosaur army for IT in small to medium-sized enterprises.

This is essentially what I'm doing too but I expect in a different country. I'm finding it incredibly difficult to successfully speak to people. How are you making headway? I'm very curious how you're leveraging AI messaging to clients/prospective clients that doesn't just come across as "I farm out work to an AI and yolo".

Edit - if you don't mind sharing, of course.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#88

Post by onion2k »

nebula8804 wrote: post #20
simmerup wrote: post #2

Terrifying that people are creating financial models with AI when they don’t have the skills to verify the model does what they expect

All we need is one major crash caused by AI to scare the capital owners. Then maybe us white collar workers can breath a bit for at least another few more years(maybe a decade+).

All we need is one major crash caused by AI to scare the capital owners.

All the previous human-driven crashes didn't change anything about capital owners' approach to money, so why would an AI-driven crash change things?

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