this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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OK, I'm not really mad at this. I already used Copilot to design a table for me in Excel and it worked really well. It did everything for me, and I just had to copy-paste the formulas into their appropriate spots. If it's built-in, possibly will work better.
Not everybody needs to be an Excel expert, after all. Having that functionality might be actually beneficial.
How do you know those formulas are correct?
By verifying that they're correct...? 🤔
I think the concern is that you can come up with a number of formulas that will get correct answers for some combinations of values and not others.
If you do not understand the logic of the formula, and what each function does, how do you verify they are correct and will always give you the results you think they will? Double check every result in its entirety?
That's my thinking
If you know what you're doing, it's significantly easier to do it yourself
You at least have some reassurance it's correct (or at least thought through)
Verification is important, but I think you're omitting from your imagination a real and large category of people who have a basic familiarity with spreadsheets and computers, so are able to understand a potential solution and see whether it makes sense, but who do not have the ability to quickly come up with it themselves.
In language it's the difference between receptive and productive vocabulary: there are words which you understand but which you would never say or write because they're part of your receptive, but not productive knowledge.
There are times when this will go wrong, because the LLM will can produce something plausible but incorrect and such a person will fail to spot it. And of course if you blindly trust it with something you're not actually capable of (or willing to) check then you will also get bad results.
I think you're completely missing the point here.
I'm not great at Excel. That doesn't mean I can't do basic math, it means I struggle designing an
xlookuporhlookup.If AI does that for me, I'll be a happy bunny. And then run a dozen different iterations of data to verify that the results I'm getting are correct.
This is what this integration is for - it's not a replacement for a human brain, it's an assistant. As are all LLMs.
I'm talking about using it when you're "not great at Excel", not when "you can't do basic math".
Always verify the results given to you by LLMs.
yes okay dad
Any time, nutsack.
I'm a dad and I approve this message.