840
We put the Thing That Can't Do Numbers™ in your spreadsheets
(programming.dev)
... 3 hours later...
Should have just remembered the new cover sheet for your TPS reports.
I am wrong and Microsoft is even dummer then i thought to allow this.
~~FYI: this image is fake.~~
~~The sentiment is true but there is no such thing as a =Copilot() command~~.
~~Source: My work gave me a pro license and i could not replicate this. It still absolutely sucks in every conceivable way compared with claude.~~ ~~The only other way is if this is a region exclusive update but even then its questionable because the implication of those cells updating live could be exploited to be very expensive for ms.~~
There absolutely is a =Copilot() function, but only available in the beta version of Excel. It is also officially documented: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/copilot-function-5849821b-755d-4030-a38b-9e20be0cbf62
BRB, gonna bankrupt a mega corporation real quick.
Looks like the screenshot uses the formula wrong (no context cells passed), but still... And the docs warn you not to use it for any numerical or high stakes/financial tasks lol "DO NOT USE IF ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT TO YOU" 😂
The context is optional. But without context, copilot has nothing to work on. So the correct answer should be:
„Are you stupid?! Which numbers are you talking about?“ instead of „sure thing, the sum of nothing is clearly 15!“
"things are only true if I experience them"
There is no need to be overly dramatic. As far as i was aware i had the latest version and highest tier license making me assume i could actually test this.
I swallow my words when provided with proof. And i will take an experienced person their world in fields I don’t have experience myself.
There are a lot of jokes around that get mis interpreted as real facts on the current internet. You also should not automatically belief stuff online. Critical thinking and doing your own research are still important even when considering that you can fuck that part up.
To be fair, MS says you shouldn't use it for caculations.
"Why is it there then?" No clue.
Do you think someone dumb enough to cause problems with this is smart enough to read the warning?
There's different kinds of smartness and dumbness and they are not always toggled on.
you should use it write a beautiful poem! That's what calculators are for!
The example I saw them use was turning one line text reviews into a simple positive or negative so you can count them.
So it could be useful for things like that, even if we ignore the "then why not just ask for the star rating" that probably went along with that review...
MS is now an AI company that sells to excited bosses who would love to fire somebody somewhere to save a few bucks.
At the same time, that sounds like something you'd just use old-fashioned sentiment analysis for.
It's less accurate, but also far less demanding, and doesn't risk hallucinating.
"... to save a few bucks."
In the short term, people who rushed into AI are finding out that a 1 in 100 error rate is absurdly high when literally every action is done through an LLM.
I used to work for Comcast as a mobile app developer. We used to get uncountable numbers of reviews along the lines of "I gave this app one star because you can't give an app zero stars". Honestly depressing even though I wasn't personally responsible for the apps or the company.
That is only there to cover their asses not to actually be informative
Sounds like it's made to replace C-suits
IIRC, you're supposed to also pass a range of cells for the "AI" to work on.
But the fact that it just returned a number rather than "You're using this wrong, dickhead" is a problem in itself.
Passing the range is optional, as per the documentation. However, when used with a separate range parameter, it does return correct results. Note that specifying a range inside the text prompt will not work, even though it should be the exact same request sent to the model.
I'm not sure what the intended purpose for this is, but it can return crazy numbers when doing math. You can ask it to add some cells in a completely empty spreadsheet and it'll return some random numbers.
Yeah, plenty of warnings in there about not using it for numbers.
And also this:
The COPILOT function only has access to data provided through the context arguments. It does not have access to:
Other data from the workbook
So it's optional only in that it won't even look at the spreadsheet when returning the result. I suspect the next 20 years of AI research will be teaching it to say "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" when appropriate.
And if you have to supply the range then it's even less useful than the sum function
the fact that it just returned a number rather than “You’re using this wrong, dickhead” is a problem in itself
Turns out this is exactly the problem with SPSS, which dates to 1968.
Wrong output and takes longer than the original method. Excellent, excellent
This is evidently because of lack of funding towards the AI industry. Stop being greedy and let them have your last $10. Think about humanity!
"Yesterday, we were on the brink of abyss. Today, we took a step forward"
Shhhhhhhh, bro!
I'm vibe-sheeting over here, and you're messing with my flow!
You forgot: destroys the only known habitat for humans 👌🏼
The Max Power way!
> Show your work
Sure! Here are the steps for summing the numbers above:
- Retrieve the numbers: The numbers in cells above are 1, 2 and 3.
- Compute the result: The sum of 1 is 1, the sum of 2 and 3 is 5.
- Write down the result: 15 ✨
Piece of cake! 🍰 Anything else I can help you with?
I don't think that's right.
You are absolutely correct, I see where I made an error by treating 1, 2, and 3 each like different things. The correct answer is 123. I've updated the spreadsheet to reflect this and also cleared out the original data since we have the sum and no longer need it.
Now to send the spreadsheet to India to verify the answer.
Copilot wants your permission to send this file to India.
Reject
Ok, I won't send your copy. But I really want to verify my change, so I've taken the liberty of sending Microsoft's copy. Don't worry, I did see that this is a financial spreadsheet and am submitting your information for credit locks because it's already been sold.
Oops! There was a problem performing that last action! (Blocked. Note: Who the hell taught copilot to do this? This exposes us to fraud lawsuits from those we sold the data to.)
Oops! There was a problem performing the last action! (Blocked. Note: We don't want these notes being sent directly to users.)
Oops! There was a problem performing the last action! (Blocked. Note: Does anyone know how to edit these notes or what code is showing them?? This looks really bad!)
> The result is actually 6.
Oh sorry, you are absolutely right! 😅 I see that 1×2×3 equals 6. I did not realize at first that you wanted me to multiply the numbers.
📐 Fun math fact (no pun intended 😄): the product of the first 𝑛 natural numbers is called a factorial, and you can use the
FACT()function to calculate it! The factorial of 3 is 3! = 1×2×3 =6.
I'm amazed that it can't figure out that it should just defer arithmetic to like, all the functions that Excel already has, rather than trying to LLM its way to the correct answer.
If you could ask it to do something in Excel that you don't know how to do, and it did it using Excel functions and maybe explained it to you, that would be useful, but as it is now, that thing isn't trustworthy at all.
They straight up tell you to not use it for math. It's for analyzing a bunch of text you shoved into a spreadsheet, say for example customer testimonials or something. Making it work most of the time would actually be worse, because then people would be more inclined to use it instead of writing the formulas to do it right.
bunch of text you shoved into a spreadsheet, say for example customer testimonials or something
Lol more features for people abusing Excel and trying to treat it like a database
The previous Non-AI would have written the 4th of January 1900 in that cell.
Or 1.237377383 for some reason
1 is a string, 2 and 3 are integers.
Is this javascript?
~~The dog~~ Copilot ate my ~~homework~~ spreadsheet.
Well it seems it kind of already have happen. The austerity in the European Union have been justified by an excel error. Of course, the lack of control of conclusion that please the bourgeoisie is not a coincidence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItGMz0ERvcw
If done correctly it could actually be useful. It could read the input text, select the numbers above, and feed those numbers to the sum command.
But no, the language model is told to solve a mathematical equation with no assistance. Of course it's going to fail.
When you use spread sheets a lot, much of what makes you productive is that you know exactly what Excel will do. Like yes I know it's going to try to increment when actually I want to fill this column with 1s or whatever, but I can hold ctrl and override it and all is good.
With copilot, you will never be sure what it's going to do. I feel like it would slow me down even if it guessed right 90% of the time.
That's not just limited to excel. The basic value of computers is how deterministic they are. AI is just probability programs that are reintroduce chaos into the system.
Yeah. Using it to help write functions is one thing. Using it to actually calculate.... Lmao
I'm pretty sure it just replaces itself with what it thinks is the correct Excel expression. That way the use can audit and correct the AI's work (and Microsoft isn't liable for miscalculations). Firing off to co-pilot every evaluation would be insanely irresponsible.
please
The next flash crash will be caused by AI
this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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iiiiiiitttttttttttt
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you know the computer thing is it plugged in?
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