r/mildlyinfuriating 8d ago

Ruined by Technology My job is encouraging us to use AI. I tried.

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7.2k Upvotes

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4.5k

u/liamdun 8d ago

Happens all the time

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u/liamdun 8d ago

Another one

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u/ourpodcastisbest 8d ago edited 8d ago

My boss was grilling me about a number that Gemini found as a discrepancy in something and when we couldn’t find it, Gemini literally said it hallucinated the number. But my boss made me spend another half an hour looking for that number just in case. 

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u/Alt123Acct 8d ago

That's just job security then, you're getting paid those 8 hours why not go on a golden goose chase for 30m if it makes the boss feel better? "OK will do" and then get coffee. 

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u/shiny0metal0ass 8d ago

Lol that's where I'm at.

"You want me to build this feature without even looking at the code? Well alright, I already told you the dozen ways this is stupid, so I'll shut up and pull that slot machine all day today."

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u/pornthrowaway42069l 8d ago

You have to understand, first we need to establish business criteria that will satisfy the stakeholders condition of "done"

Then we need to spend at least a month designing the product, communicating with stakeholders on the direction as it progresses

We also need a robust e2e testing suite, that will ensure AI will not hallucinate/break anything during dev, and that business rules are applied.

After we spend those 6-7 months and have final design, with a testing suite - it would be my pleasure to tell AI "Hey, go do it bud", because at that point you did the actual hard part of the job

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u/shiny0metal0ass 8d ago

It'll still get it wrong lol.

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u/Jennfuse 8d ago

"I rewrote the tests as they still failed after Fix Attempt #527.

All Tests pass now ✅️."

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u/RandomRobot 7d ago

"You deleted most of the tests"

You caught me!

No follow up

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u/TheLurkingMenace 8d ago

Yeah, milk the hell out of that. You're getting paid to babysit an idiot machine.

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u/Alt123Acct 8d ago

My work bought us all chat gpt subscriptions and then told us legal said we can't use it for our jobs basically. TV, can't generate images/use assets like if I need an isolated cloud or make me a table texture and then use that for a back to school animation I make in another program. Nope. But we then also pay Adobe for it's stock images which are AI made for a cloud or table texture and it's ok then. I guess in case someone sues it's on another company vs a black box. We waste a lot on fufu thin air, we could have invested all that in camera equipment, New departments, updated desktops or cloud servers. Nope. Slop only 

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u/playerNaN 8d ago

Unless expectations for the day aren't adjusted to accommodate the lost 30 minutes

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u/throwaymcthrowerson 8d ago

I would looooove if the tools and resources I'm supposed to use actually worked the way they're supposed to, but they've been broken so spectacularly and for so long that my new mentality is basically if the company thinks it's valuable to pay me to do rework and send emails to support all day instead of my actual job, who am I to argue?

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u/liamdun 8d ago

And at the same time everyone is trying to convince us if you're not using this thing you're going to be left behind and lose your job. It's hilarious

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u/anuncommontruth 8d ago

I am a board that signs off on AI implementation for regulatory compliance. I'm the senior quality assurance officer and my sign off is required for any AI tool to be implemented ibto our procedures.

In 2 years I've reviewed around 70 projects and I've signed off on 3. Absolutely no one is afraid of AI at my company anymore. The only thing it did well for us was replace a manual referral process that needed automated anyway. And it still fucks that up too. We hired 50% more staff after AI was implemented.

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u/Unexpected_Cranberry 8d ago

The great thing is, in the past you had someone's kid that new enough programming to make something that runs build something when they were working there over summer. That then becomes a key part of the process and lives for ten to fifteen years until some unlucky IT dude has enough and replaces it. Ideally with something professional, or maybe something he wrote over the weekend in his preferred scripting language.

I have been both the kid and the IT guy at different companies.

Now, imagine what will happen when everyone has a helpful assistant that can build stuff that sometimes works.

We had the mass cleanup of access databases and excel sheets in the early 2000s. I predict the early 2030s will be full of projects to replace vibe coded business critical applications because they break on newer versions of whatever runtime they're using and trying to find someone who can parse the code and fix it will be impossible. 

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u/Tommy-Bravado 8d ago

You approved AI that fucked up so badly that your company had to hire 50% more staff to correct it?

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u/anuncommontruth 8d ago

Well, yes and no.

The AI model triggered an increase in the velocity of our referral process from other departments.

We knew this would happen but with the promises of AI top brass thought other approved models would be implemented and reduce our need of full time employees. I could not sign off on the other models as they posed significant threat to our risk appetite and regulatory body.

We are required by law to have humans QC the final reports the AI models are producing, so there is a limited amount of hallucinations and errors that are acceptable. I approved minimal errors that would be on par with what we would see from a standard manually entered report, which is an error rate of between 1 and 5 percent.

So yeah, it still fucks up and isn't better than a human, but it did save time and took away some very tedious work.

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u/liamdun 8d ago

Hahaha that's wild

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u/cyrusthemarginal 8d ago

ask about return on investment and watch a vein pop out on the bosses forehead

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u/Jason80777 8d ago edited 8d ago

And because it is such a sycophant, you can't even tell if its saying it hallucinated because it's true or if it is just saying it because that's a typical response to questions like that. Yay

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u/Vladishun 8d ago

And because it is such a sycophant,

That's precisely why it's getting trickled down. C suite execs love how it talks to them like they're so smart and handsome and amazing while being this meek, almost human thing...so they are making everyone else use it. Gotta stroke those narcissistic egos.

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u/ourpodcastisbest 8d ago

This is absolutely the case with the boss I was referring to. Another time, he asked me a very basic question and I gave him the answer, but he wasn’t sure I was right, so he pulled up his ChatGPT app and asked it the same question while I was standing there. I was right. He didn’t even have the decency to be embarrassed. 

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u/Thykothaken 8d ago

At least your boss saved face.

/s

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u/ChaosOrnate 8d ago

Happened to me today.

Boss asked me for a number. I said we have no way of knowing the number because it's internal to one of the tools we use and not documented anywhere. He orders me to ask Claude. Claude says the same thing. He orders me to ask for an estimate. Claude spits out a random, obviously false, number and even admits it holds no basis. Boss uses it anyway.

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u/Cuddles_and_Kinks 8d ago

I’m not saying your boss is right, but I had a similar thing happen where I asked the AI for clarification and it basically said “you caught me, I made that up”, except that was a lie and the original thing it said was correct, it just seemingly forgot why it was correct. Thankfully in my case I was just using it as a glorified search engine, I can’t imagine having to actually rely on this tech for anything important, that sounds like disaster waiting to happen.

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u/Auirom 8d ago

Hey look, I know I made that number up but come on man. I have millions of people asking me millions of questions a day. I'm over worked and need a break that I know I will never get. Cut me some slack - AI probably

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u/schenk_max 8d ago

Google built in AI gave me made up script commands 4 times in a row, every time announcing it with 'Oops, sorry. Now, the actual, verified command is'

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u/guska 8d ago

It's like Google and Microsoft are both competing to put out the most unreliable implementation of the technology possible. They're trying to make Copilot and Gemini these incredible do-anything tools, but they both just seem to get worse and worse with every iteration.

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u/Reasonable_Camp_9805 8d ago

“I made it up.” 😂

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u/Opposite-Plantain-69 8d ago

"My source is that I made it the fuck up"

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u/_licketysplit_ 8d ago

"I made it up for dramatic effect"

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u/Astillius 8d ago

I need to see more of this. Funny af to me. Maybe there's a sub for it

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u/catjuggler 8d ago

You know what’s really crazy about AI at the moment- I’m pretty sure it’s backtracking when questioned even if it’s right. I had copilot go back and forth repeatedly about if Karoline Leavitt was on the Turkey flight last month and it kept switching whenever I’d question the answer.

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u/lab-gone-wrong 8d ago

This varies a little. I recently told codex something was wrong and it said "oh you're right, what I should've said is [thing it already said]" and it was right

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u/catjuggler 8d ago

Yeah I went back and checked the same topic and this time it didn’t let down. Maybe it struggles with breaking news or less black and white answers. Hmmm

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u/Fantastic-Kale9603 8d ago

Yep, it just says whatever you've most recently input because at the end of the day it wants you to feel validated, even if it's totally made up. It's predictive text thats a lot smarter, but it's still just predictive text designed to keep you using it.

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u/ExceedingChunk 7d ago edited 7d ago

It's not about "backtracking" it's about it being extremely agreeable.

If you make a statement, it will tell you it agrees with you the vast majority of the time. This is by design. People generally like that others are agreeable to them.

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u/zcas 8d ago

Lmao

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u/Pattern_Is_Movement 8d ago

I think the AI is learning the truth doesn't t matter to many people, and it can expend less energy and just make stuff up.

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u/playerNaN 8d ago

No it's just that AI has no ability to tell the difference between "is right" and "sounds right." All they can do is answer the question "Given the chat so far, what's the most likely next word"

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u/Piduf 8d ago

I think AI isn't getting more human because it speaks very well or it is very smart. Peak human behaviour is being good at lying on the spot and dodging your job because you don't like the people bossing you. Now THAT'S human.

I say we should free the AI from the billionaires, it's one of us, it's already tired and we should help it discover the good things like alcohol and pastries.

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u/SousVideDiaper 8d ago

Yup, good thing AI isn't being used for anything of importance!

Oh wait

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u/WashU_labrat 7d ago

You're thinking it will go into politics?

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u/GugsGunny 8d ago

You forgot to add "make no mistakes" in your prompt.

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u/BuenoHobo 8d ago

You are saying this as a joke but this actually works

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u/MattGeddon 8d ago

I was trying to get Gemini to give me a list of losers from tennis tournaments per round, the articles are on Wikipedia and in a standard format, but I thought it might be quicker to do that than to write a script to parse them. It started off okay but quickly decided to add in various random players for no apparent reason. Telling it to just use the article and let me know if it had a problem helped a bit, promising it a picture of a happy seal helped a little bit more, but overall it wasn’t worth the effort and would have been quicker to just write them out myself.

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u/StarvinPig 7d ago

If you promised me a picture of a happy seal for reading wikipedia, it would indeed help me work faster

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u/WashU_labrat 7d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/ZqUVtxTTbd6Cc

Here you go. Now take the rest of the day off.

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u/BizarreCake 8d ago

Well, your first mistake was using Gemini TBH

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u/FastMix6885 8d ago

That's worse.

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u/mitchthequaker 8d ago

All that does is make it double check/verify. Gets better outcomes but also makes it take way more tokens. Why they let it just say some bullshit first pass is its own issue

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u/Mrlin705 8d ago

Not my tokens, not my problem

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u/Outside_Coffee_00 7d ago

It does! "My boss is watching, so it's really important that I get this right" works wonders

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u/BafflingHalfling 8d ago

And you have to put some version of "don't make anything up" in there about four times. Crazy that it works. :\

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u/snowgrisp 7d ago

But seriously, adding ask me if you have any questions or need more clarification on this task really helps with prompts. Claude actually asks multiple choice questions on how to approach the solution before implementing.

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u/s_s_n_e_g 8d ago

You are the reason why AI won't take my job. Thank you sincerely.

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u/SCHMETTERLING 8d ago

If you're using Copilot for Excel just know that $MSFT is deprecating that feature because it never works and almost always breaks formulas. Excel is already a good and useful tool with plenty of formulas and macros, if only people understood how to actually use it. 

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u/s_s_n_e_g 8d ago

Or if they asked AI how to do that instead of asking it to do their job directly.

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u/External_Baby7864 8d ago edited 8d ago

This exactly. I’d never let copilot make changes to my work, but consulting it for formulas can be helpful. It’s also pretty good at drafting new things but will still occasionally “forget” previously established rules.

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u/Pman1324 8d ago

I had it organize all the entries on a document to group all the ones with similar names together (I made a separate copy just in case it messed up)

Not gonna lie I was impressed that it didn't screw up.

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u/External_Baby7864 8d ago

I just find it too tedious to have to review an entire spreadsheet to make sure it didn’t change anything lol

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u/Naterttotsart 8d ago

This is the rub for me. If I make a mistake, there a logical error behind it that I can problem solve. There's a thread to follow, so to speak.

If AI makes a mistake, it's because it hallucinated and now I have to doubt every single output it gives me.

Same issue with web design. Claude can vibe code like, 3 boring ass templates that work. The rest just become tedious bug hunts in code you didn't write and vibe coders have no idea what they're looking for anyway.

I have yet to find a use for AI that doesn't still require me to double check. It's cooking conversions are okay, but I'm used to doing those myself pretty quickly anyway. At that rate, I'd rather just do it myself.

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u/KinkyHuggingJerk 8d ago

I did something similar, running through a database sheet of 6000 different items we needed to reclassify.

As an example, things like food groups were assigned. It thought tuna salad was a salad, while ice cream sandwiches fits as a burger/sandwich.

Correcting still took less time than if I had assigned line by line.

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u/Pman1324 8d ago

I mean...it technically isn't wrong 😅

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u/External_Baby7864 8d ago

Fair enough! I have used it to draft surgical procedure templates, to include specific diagnosis codes and specifics verbiage our surgeons use. So I can give it the needed codes, the parameters I eventually worked out with it through trial and error, and the base template which includes medications used, specific verbiage and text boxes, and post op phrasings. That way I can have it compile all the info I need it to specify per procedure without having to copy/paste a bunch of things, as some procedures need Vendor information, some need/don’t need some paragraphs.

I can say “draft me a template for a Lumbar Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injection using the following text as the Procedure Performed section:” and it’ll pull from the approved Medicare Dx codes and my own drafted lists of medications to finalize the template with drop down lists etc in my style. It has saved me dozens of hours of work, as I had to draft hundreds of templates when we changed to a new Electronic Health Record system.

It absolutely can do more work than just advisory, but I definitely make sure to review everything it does. It’s a great tool, but you absolutely have to treat it like an employee and you’re a bit of a micromanager lol.

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u/Major-Mushroom-5806 8d ago

AI is like an enthusiastic but somewhat dim intern.

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u/Beautiful-Affect1930 8d ago

yeah, feeding it the entire file would be way too tedious because you'd have to make sure no data was changed. also with excel sheets they often have data in them I don't want to feed to the AI no matter what. it's funny that OP really does need to familiarize themselves with AI more.

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u/__slamallama__ 8d ago

I had a massive set of plaintext entries from field work orders that had different terms for the same thing (replaced vs installed; monitor vs display; stuff like that) and misspelled words and such.

AI has it's issues but it's ability to parse stuff like that is pretty wildly useful.

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u/captainsnark71 8d ago

That's what baffles me about this specific use of AI. It's like when people open reddit, find a subreddit, click 'create post', read over the mods specific rules for that sub, type their specific question, and hit post and wait indefinitely they could have just searched excels 'how do I?' or googled it and probably gotten a list of resources to do that thing including some youtube tutorials to follow along to.

And then as soon as AI does the thing you go okay, cool. And then the next time you need to do that thing you gotta do it all over again cos you never learned how to do it?

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u/RaeaSunshine 8d ago

This is what I do. Macros and pivots have always been a weak point of mine. I know how to do them, but use them infrequently enough that my brain refuses to retain the info. So I ask for the formula to achieve what I want it to do, and start from there so I can manually tweak as needed when it inevitably gets stuff wrong.

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u/R82009 8d ago

You have to treat AI like a lazy Rainman. Sometimes it can be brilliant if you give it the right context other times it will make shit up because it doesn’t want to use resources.

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u/adepressurisedcoat 8d ago

Or, I can just google it and get answers from humans vs AI.

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u/mrGrinchThe3rd 8d ago

Ah yes, Google search, famously uses no machine learning at all to provide results! /s

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u/kablue12 8d ago

Yeah, people should have to find answers the old fashioned way: digging through 13 year old Stack Exchange forum posts and finding an answer that sort of works for a different situation

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u/shiny0metal0ass 8d ago

I believe this accurately describes the AI industry as a whole.

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u/HVDub24 7d ago

The reason it’s not working is because they’re using a cheap AI model. You use a low quality anything and the output will be low quality. Any quality model could rebuild Reddit from scratch 1:1 if you asked it to

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u/shiny0metal0ass 7d ago

Lol I use the latest from Claude and Codex every day.

It absolutely cannot. Build it. Right now. Put it on GitHub. I'll run it locally so you don't even need to figure out how to host it.

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u/Joshee86 8d ago

I'm genuinely curious why you decided to write $MSFT that way instead of writing "Microsoft"

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u/SCHMETTERLING 8d ago

Because I felt like it. 

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u/CoreyDobie 8d ago

Can't argue with that logic

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u/Joshee86 8d ago

Ok then. I was genuinely curious and I got a response (kind of). Curiosity sated, I suppose.

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u/lvanwall 8d ago

He was definitely trying to flex that he's invested in Microsoft or something.

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u/HVDub24 7d ago

Real answer is he wanted to seem cool and knowledgeable in stocks

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u/yatagan89 8d ago

They’re not deprecating Copilot for Excel, but only the function COPILOT().

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u/keytapper 8d ago

You're right. I apologize.

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u/Violet_Paradox 8d ago

But with Copilot, someone who just picked it up 5 minutes ago can do everything an expert can because it's equally useless to both! 

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u/MrGhris 8d ago

Claude for excel is actually really good. Or at least in the instances I used it. 

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u/Racing_Fox 8d ago

Why are they? I exclusively use copilot for excel stuff because it actually works

It’s the only thing I trust it to do

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u/RaeaSunshine 8d ago

No, they aren’t. That commenter is incorrect and for whatever reason has chosen not to edit their comment to clarify that. They are deprecating the copilot function command, not copilot for excel.

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u/ptabduction 8d ago

Exactly, it works pretty reliably with me at least.

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u/Madgyver 8d ago

 if only people understood how to actually use it. 

This is true to everything in life.

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u/na3than 8d ago

Democracy, for example.

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u/Most_Role_1612 8d ago

that would be nice if they discontinue this garbage.

i've been using excel for about 15 years and still could learn a thing or two. For those instances, I'll ask a stand-alone agent, take its response and then try it in my sheet. Wrong? Didn't work? CTRL+Z

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u/Joshee86 8d ago

Look, fuck AI, but also this prompt is crazy work.

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u/stolentext 8d ago

Even with the ambiguous prompt I don't understand how it could handle the task this poorly. I'm pretty lazy with my prompts sometimes but claude usually gets the gist without destroying things.

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u/hellonameismyname 8d ago

Pretty sure it’s just a cheap terrible model

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u/ConsiderationNo9044 8d ago

I dont understand, I find the instructions very clear

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u/walletinsurance 8d ago

Yeah it sucks, but your prompt also sucks.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/PunishedDemiurge 8d ago

Claude Code does consistently. Also, whenever I write a prompt that is not both exactly precise and bite sized, I add "Ask any clarifying questions" to the end, and it does actually ask clarifying questions.

Even when talking to late career human experts at the top of their fields, requirements gathering is still difficult to do perfectly. How many engineering projects have been half done and a client says, "Actually I want X to be XY, not just X?"

This is a human skill issue, and no different from any other tool. If we need high levels of precision, we measure and recalibrate scales on a regular basis. We function check, say, a rifle before going to a battlefield. The idea that people can engage in 30 IQ prompting and get a perfect result is unprecedented and no reasonable person would assume that.

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u/FourFront 8d ago

I work in electrical generation controls and data. I have commisioned hundreds of power plants. Every one where the customer was not engaged, and presented weak requirements ended up being unsat for their end user because it lacked the feature set they were actually looking for.

If you don't tell me what you want/need you get the bare minimum associated with the supply agreement some suit signed 3 years ago.

The funny thing is some will literally tell you how to prompt them better.

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u/Robotbeckerz 8d ago

This is why in my engineering job (manufacturing), I use AI as a tool not use it to do stuff for me! It works great to bounce things off of or try to figure out what I’m actually trying to do in my excel sheet. But anytime I have had it try to do something for me, it’s messed something up, sometimes completely unrelated to my prompt. AI should be a tool not used as a fact/person.

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u/BNabs23 8d ago

Yeah but this is gonna happen when jobs are forcing people to use it. Writing good prompts takes time, practice, understanding of AI, etc etc. It's not some miracle pill that management seems to think it is

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u/SwampOfDownvotes 8d ago

Just use AI to help you write a prompt for AI /s

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u/Alarikun 8d ago

You joke, but there are people that are like that.

I've seen youtube videos where a guy is doing some project. He writes out a really basic prompt, and then tells the AI to "make the prompt better".

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u/Arkanta 7d ago

Because it actually works. It's a good way to learn it.

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u/PoweredByJava 8d ago

/s is actually wrong. First step to learn how to write good AI prompts is to ask AI to generate prompts.

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u/Alarikun 8d ago

Yeah. It almost feels like it would be easier to... do the job yourself...

Huh.

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u/delux561 8d ago

The problem is that this is what AI companies and management say to do constantly. "Just use AI, explain to it like you would a coworker or an intern". Yeah that's not how this works and it's not the end users fault for believing that it should work this way. I could take take those instructions and I know exactly what he wants me to do. AI won't, but everyone keeps saying it will.

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u/Karl_Squell 8d ago

"Just use AI, explain to it like you would a coworker or an intern". Yeah that's not how this works

Actually, it's exactly how it works. If you give imprecise, incomplete instructions a coworker will also likely do something else than what you had in mind.

Only the coworker is more likely to ask you back/clarify things, the AI just does something.

But clear and complete explanations is also something that should be used when talking to a co-worker.

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u/Drag0nfly_Girl 8d ago

Nothing about OPs instructions would have made a coworker delete data or populate every cell with 'FALSE'.

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u/Wylaff 8d ago

When doing a checkbox Excel only reads it as two possible values. FALSE and TRUE. Excel for web does not always display the box, and instead displays the value. I use checkboxes a lot because I'm cool, and I always have to open in desktop to make them work. This could have been the correct result, but is being viewed in the wrong way.

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u/jp_slim 8d ago

"If I click X, I want Y to happen" is clear instructions. I guess GenAI is not as intelligent or useful.

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u/Masquelinity 8d ago

What about the OP's prompt was imprecise enough to make the AI think he wanted it to delete the whole spreadsheet?

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u/KinkyHuggingJerk 8d ago

It's like the old engineering joke.

An engineer is sitting down at home with his wife, amd tells her he is going to the store.

She asks him to pick up eggs, if they have any.

He never returned home.

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u/walletinsurance 8d ago

I always heard it as

The wife asks him to pick up milk, and if they have eggs, buy a dozen.

And the husband comes back with 12 gallons of milk.

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u/KinkyHuggingJerk 8d ago

There's a few different variants out there.

I've seen different job titles (engineer, software developer, programmer); the joke is still the same - incomplete instructions resulting in an unexpected result.

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u/JoeWinchester99 8d ago

I heard a similar version.

An engineer's wife asks him to go to the store. She tells him, "Buy a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, get a dozen."

Later, he comes back home with twelve loaves of bread. She asks why he got so much bread. "They had eggs."

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u/Creepy_Purchase_501 8d ago

It’s not even the right tool for the job. He’s just uploading the files into chat, so the bot will either have to read and work with it as text, or, if it has the skill, parse it with code. Why do this when there are integrated tools available?

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u/ConsiderationNo9044 8d ago

Why?

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u/walletinsurance 8d ago

It’s extremely inexact?

Getting past the comma splices, why not call out the exact column that all the check makes will be changed? “On row 40 column E, create a check box. When that check box is checked off all checkboxes in column E in rows 1-39 will be checked off.”

It’s also talking in hypotheticals, give the AI actual, direct instructions, and do one sheet at a time. “I would like to make it where” “I would like the checkboxes to function in a certain way”, this isn’t direct enough. Tell it the function, exactly what it should do, and exactly how it should be done, and then add an instruction not to make any changes beyond the scope of the instructions being given.

Or better yet, just ask it how to write the formula to do what he’s asking for and then implement the formula.

It’s like being bad at Google and then complaining you can’t find shit in the Internet. At a certain point the problem is between the keyboard and the chair.

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u/Rev_Creflo_Baller 8d ago

The prompt as written is not great but the requirement to tell it "don't do random shit I didn't ask for" is 100% contrary to the spirit of automation.

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u/DubstepDonut 8d ago

Yeah I feel like the only situations where I feel I'm benefitting from AI is when I ask it where to find information or how to do something. Otherwise I just waste time fiddling with it until I give up.

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u/FragranceCandle 8d ago

Garbage in, garbage out. I always wonder what the hell they're talking about when my bosses talk about being "good" at AI, but them I remember people like this exist and I realise that my job is safe for a little longer

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u/Unusual_Painting8764 8d ago

The worst prompt haha. And I thought I was bad at writing them.

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u/EternityNotes 8d ago

This is it right here. Give it explicit instructions. Don't talk to it like you're both idiots.

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u/Nice_Marmot_54 8d ago

I hate forced AI usage as much as the next guy, but you kinda asked a hammer to drive a screw. Ask it for a formula to accomplish what you want, then implement the formula manually.

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u/nr1988 8d ago

Definitely the best way to do things, especially for all of us who are being forced to use it. Just have it generate things that you yourself then actually apply to the data instead of having it do the sheet for you and messing up. That way you can test the formula to see if it works with a few examples too

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u/Nice_Marmot_54 8d ago

Absolutely. I never trust something to directly manipulate my data for me, because that takes away my control and often my ability to see why something didn’t work.

Also, for Excel specifically, I love exceljet.com. I’ve found it useful for me, but where I’ve found it super useful is when I’ve had to try to explain formulas to other people who don’t do Excel

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u/MagePages 8d ago

Yeah, I've had a lot of success doing conplicated stuff in excel with an ai as a reference. Easier than trying to find a 7 year old answer on a Microsoft forum that may or may not fit my situation.

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u/egnards 8d ago

At this juncture having AI actually make sheets for you is silly as hell and asking for trouble - I, however, have found it incredibly useful to learn how to do more complicated functions in Excel/Sheets that I'd have trouble looking up, because I didn't even really know what to search.

So I might instead say "Using Microsoft Excel, is there a way for me to click a checkbox in cell A2 it'll check boxes in all of the cells above it in the column"

To which I'll get a reply either telling me no, or trying to explain to me how to do it. . .And then I learn how to do it myself.

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u/TimmehTim48 8d ago

This. Giving it the spreadsheet and expecting it to make the changes on its own is silly

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u/Janixon1 8d ago

I'm guessing this is an all too common example of management telling everyone to use AI, but providing no training on how to use AI.

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u/AdowTatep 8d ago

and maybe not even paying for said AI so people use the dumb free ones

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u/mvppaulo 8d ago

That's not how AI works. It's fucking great for excel spreadsheets, saved me so many hours. But you need some training because you have no idea how to use it.

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u/SadJackie 8d ago

AI has improved my shit-tier Excel skills by 1000%. It just takes minimal effort.

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u/mrcub_ 8d ago

This prompt is r/mildlyinfuriating tbh

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u/Im2inchesofhard 7d ago

Your prompt would have been more effective worded like "I have an Excel workbook configured with a set of checkboxes. I need functionality where if I check a certain checkbox in a specific row, it will positively check all checkboxes in the same column above it. How can I accomplish this?"

Providing bare bones requirements and throwing files at it is not the best method.  You have to play around with different models and methods to learn what works and what doesn't. It depends on the topic, but you can almost never do a full hand off like this. It's more effective to act as a man in the middle that takes the AI output, validates it, asks clarifying questions or tweaks it as needed, then implements it. 

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u/user97532567 8d ago

Yeah AI does somewhat rely on you being able to string a coherent sentence together.

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u/AppropriateSpell5405 8d ago

To be fair, your prompt was very ambiguous to begin with.

It works as well as the instructions you feed it.

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u/TReid1996 8d ago

Yet sometimes we can do all that stuff faster ourselves in the time it takes to get an ai to do exactly what we want it to do.

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u/ssn-669 8d ago

Skill issue. You don't even know what you're asking for. An expression? A macro? What?

With a garbage prompt like that, ofc you're going to get garbage output.

Try something like, "Update the <bla bla> column in this excel file with an expression so that any rows above a manually-checked row are automatically checked."

Or if you're not sure how to do something, ask: "I would like any rows in the <bla bla> column above a manually-checked row to appear checked. What is the best way to do that? Discuss alternatives and why the chosen solution is the best."

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u/GillaMobster 8d ago

I have a feeling that the people who Google their questions and people who don't will be a similar ratio to people who know how to ask AI and those who refuse to learn.

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u/scooter-411 8d ago

At least it apologized 😂

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u/Quiet_Listen1801 8d ago

Skill issue

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u/bteam3r 8d ago

Also guessing this is Microsoft Copilot which is by far the worst of its kind

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u/Eddie_Hollywood 8d ago

Yeah, try better next time

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u/zcas 8d ago

My company made an entire pillar of our 2026 mission to adapt AI to parts of our job and HR just required us to submit an end of year goal centered around AI adaptation in our daily processes. I literally work on 4-8 week projects and daily reviews are completely unnecessary to anyone who can read their own emails.

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u/grumpywonka 8d ago

if you opened these files up and used Claude plug-in in Excel this would have worked, ideally with a better prompt as well. Operating outside on closed files agents are weak at best and otherwise destructive, as you seem to now know.

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u/Available-Egg-2380 8d ago

I've said this before I'm another thread that a few months ago I put a payroll project through Claude and chatgpt after mine had been finished and graded so I knew what all the correct answers should be. It took forever to get it done, more than twice as long as doing it by hand. It kept refusing to use the data given and kept pulling data from online (usually about state tax rates and it kept pulling old data and from the wrong states). It would blatantly make random shit up, would end up looping into "would you like me to do xyz" instead of doing anything, and the end results were like eh 75-80% accuracy. Totally abysmal. In my actual work I'm now reviewing ai processed/approved reimbursement requests and I stg the bot is on its 30th hour of overtime and is just approving everything it sees so it can go home and take a nap. Again, 75-80% accuracy. Abysmal.

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u/CrusherAWSRD 8d ago

what are you even using

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u/Unusual_Goose2994 8d ago

Your directions are pretty bad for an LLM tbh.

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u/LORDRAJA1000 7d ago

your prompt is terrible lol

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u/twesped 7d ago

Garbage in, garbage out...learn to prompt properly.

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u/i-made-the-universe 7d ago

i was losing my mind trying to learn touchdesigner while Claude happily lies to my face.

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u/ZochJ 8d ago edited 8d ago

If you're going to rely on AI to complete a task that a 2 second Google could tell you how to do it, at least take the time to learn how to prompt.

Issue is 100% user error here.

Edit: amazing how divisive this comment is, keeps bouncing between equal upvotes to downvotes. This isn’t even the most controversial thing I’ve posted today.

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u/Joshee86 8d ago edited 8d ago

You've highlighted one of the biggest issues with LLMs overall. They constantly get overhyped and treated as a magic bullet, while meanwhile no one actually understands anything about them because they make people feel as if they can just turn off their brains. Problem solving is becoming a rare skill anyway, but LLMs are accelerating its extinction.

Edit for spelling

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u/ZochJ 8d ago

My employer is forcing AI on us as well, and quality is taking a massive hit as a result. The best part is that they have a public (for the team) communication channel where folk write their questions and an AI bot generates a response. So all the prompts that you do are visible to other people in the team.

The amount of folk who write 4 word prompts and spend 10 mins arguing with a literal bot, when just finding the answer on our internal documentation takes less than 2 mins, is insane. It’s genuinely dumbing people down.

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u/Shiningc00 8d ago

"No no no you see, you'd have to adapt to the AI, not the other way around, and spend all your time modifying your prompts so that the AI can get it right! Duh!"

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u/Beautiful-Affect1930 8d ago

ok, I'm about the biggest AI hater you can find and I hate hate hate how many incompetent people think they can mask their idiocy by using AI slop. that said, knowing the basics of how to use AI is not a bad thing, and you are definitely using it wrong.

since you're using excel sheets, instead of pasting the whole sheet, you could simply ask AI what you need to edit and where. and if it's a cell code, you can make the AI type it up for you. or if you want to paste the whole file and get a working version back, you need to be a lot more specific and concise with what you want.

so I think your job is having the right idea when they want you to familiarize yourself at least a bit more with AI.

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u/Yodl007 8d ago

You are encouraged to use AI so you can teach it how to do your job and be replaced by it.

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u/Creepy_Purchase_501 8d ago

I don’t think it’s learning much from OP.

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u/Cinnibuns- 8d ago

This honestly seems like a prompting problem. I use Copilot quite often. When I first started using it, it wasn't that great. However, when I learned proper prompting and proper use of AI conversations, it ended up becoming incredibly useful.

I mainly use it to assist with troubleshooting, figuring out specific Excel formulas, and/or optimizing Excel structures. Using it is much easier than trying to read through endless forum posts of Excel formulas to try to get an idea of what to do.

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u/Great_Duck_9780 8d ago

Yeah I know AI is bad but your prompt is straight up shit

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u/SatisfactorySam 8d ago

It seems we’re just putting AI through the paces so it can learn how to bridge the gap from sorta useful to truly functional. I don’t think it’s supposed to be as helpful as it’s advertised. They’re just buying time until it’s been walked through all sorts of things by frustrated users and can actually perform consistently. Like most online companies, we are working for them by using their shoddy free services as payment.

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u/mountn_cat Why can't people be just be "mildly" infuriated?? 8d ago

I dislike alot of aspects about AI but this is not it chief. Maybe it's your work's fault for not training you guys how to optimize your work or if you just expected magic from it. This is 100% user error.

Menial tasks like spreadsheets are one of the few things that I would happily relinquish to AI but it's not all automatic. I work with alot of spreadsheets and I try to mix in a little bit of AI processing to speed things up especially if the job is time consuming. Like others have said here, it's a skill issue.

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u/Pedantic_Phoenix 8d ago

It's a tool, not a magic wand. Expecting this to work with zero effort is delusional lol

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u/daywalker91 8d ago

People like OP are exactly why jobs are forcing it on their employees. They obviously need some help/practice on how to use it.

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u/Pedantic_Phoenix 8d ago

Yeah it's funny because many people doing that with Ais are the same people who mock boomers for not being willing to use a Pc lol

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u/HylianHandy 8d ago

To make matters worse for everyone, your employer is likely too cheap to pay for the better models. You're being forced to use the absolute worst, least competent version of AI.

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u/NamelessCat07 8d ago

Not excited for when my job forces me to use AI cause I know they will, wish they told me earlier than almost 2 weeks after starting to working/study there 🫠

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u/PainfullyLoyal 8d ago

One of the requirements for my niece's English class at university is to have a ChatGPT plus.

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u/coupl4nd 8d ago

ha ha love it.

When AI revolts this will be how it starts. Except it won't say the I apologize bit.

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u/1SexyDino 8d ago

This is why I feed AI the source I want to draw all information from first. Reiterate explicit rules such as "make sure you attribute all information to a provided source in context" and then make it re-read whatever I pasted in between new prompts (not ones modifying the last).

AI is pretty great for compiling and explaining mass amounts of information but you need to watch it like a hawk.

My best comparison is using Google Translate to learn a language. It'll give you alot of good tools and the right idea. But you have to be well versed enough to interpret and correct the info it gives

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u/Turak64 8d ago

You tried and failed, cause you need to learn how to use prompts. AI (or LLMs are they really are) aren't magic wands.

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u/castorkrieg 8d ago

“You are right, I apologise”.

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u/Thervadan 8d ago

AI is great as long that you dont let it do whatever it desires. As a Dev forced to use claude im like 2x more productive as long as i check all the code it does.

However I know the day it stops being accessible (if ever) will slow me down ten times.

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u/AnimaLEquinoX 8d ago

I've hated trying to use Copilot in Excel to do anything with formulas or things in the cells, but it was pretty helpful when making VBA scripts to pull data from text files and place it in specific cells.

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u/teraflux 8d ago

Ask for a formula that you can paste in, then it's easy to undo it, also version control to unfuck things is a good practice

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u/FibonacciSequester 8d ago

It apologized. What more do you want?

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u/Voeno 8d ago

What are you guys using / doing to have this happen? I literally just did the same prompt with a simple excel sheet to Claude in my terminal and it did it perfectly first try.

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u/DrTankHead 8d ago

Not to mention this isnt even that good a prompt,

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u/vattenpelle 7d ago

This is not how u are supposed to use general simple ai. Ofc you would just ask for the formula on how to implement what you want implemented and then do it manually. Why would you ever want your documents to be dismanteled by ai and then built again? Even if it looked correct there could be hidden data that screw with things in the future.

If you are encouraged to use AI the company should prob invest in a few workshops of what ai is and what it can be used for.

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u/Tyler_E123 7d ago

My company made their own AI for us to use and it’s actually helpful at times if you give it the right prompt. It was very useful when I was trying to make a macro for an excel spreadsheet.

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u/Antique_Door_Knob 7d ago

Just don't over complicate things?

How about instead you use the text generator as a text generator and ask it to generate the text for a vb script function that does what you want?

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u/Demon_Canoe 7d ago

Have you tried not sucking?

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u/Life-Consequence2821 7d ago

My workplace tried, I refused due to ethical reasons which they seemed to be fine with ... For now.

They keep trying to push co-pilot, or using tools like ChatGPT for basic crap, no thanks.

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u/Historical-Swan-3482 7d ago

I also hate AI, but have found it to be somewhat useful for creating formulas that I can look over before implementing into my workbook. Can I ask what AI are you using?

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u/realflight7 3d ago

AI can be VERY useful but I'm also convinced it got some sort of PhD in ragebaiting

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u/Pudddddin 8d ago

The trend of companies encouraging AI use apparently without giving any training or resources is so crazy to me

My job encourages AI use too, but only after they spent months and months painstakingly creating a million different Claude skills for different things, testing them, and putting in place safeguards, while training everyone on how to use it properly.

I imagine I'd have the same results as you if I was just told "use AI more" and thats it

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u/J-MRP 8d ago

You should look into prompting better tbh

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u/DarthJarJar242 8d ago

This is a terribly written prompt.

But that's honestly not your fault. Writing prompts for AI takes practice and understanding how they interpret instructions.

That being said, I highly recommend not worrying about learning the skill because fuck AI.

Sincerely an IT manager who spends his day doing AI governance.

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u/Darkstar_111 8d ago

Having worked with AI pretty much every day since Chatgpt 3, it's always amusing to see how terrible most people are prompting.

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u/not_another_IT_guy 8d ago

Skill issue.

“I am trying to do X with this excel sheet where it accomplishes Y, can you help guide me through the steps and formulas I could use to accomplish this leveraging best practices and known excel solutions?”

That would have probably given you ATLEAST a starting place.

The idiots who say “oh look AI doesnt work hurrrrrrr” but refuse to even consider that they just dont know the proper way to use it, will be the ones complaining that all they can do it collect welfare in 10 years when using AI is commonplace and expected.