While we’ve been known to use and abuse spreadsheets in the past, we haven’t taken it to the level of [Spreadsheets Are All You Need]. The site provides a spreadsheet version of an “AI” system much like ChatGPT 2. Sure, that’s old tech, but the fundamentals are the same as the current crop of AI programs. There are several “lesson” videos that explain it all, with the promise of more to come. You can also, of course, grab the actual spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet is big, and there are certain compromises. For one thing, you have to enter tokens separately. There are 768 numbers representing each token in the input. That’s a lot for a spreadsheet, but a modern GPT uses many more.
As this is written, there are only two lesson videos and a general walk-through video for people who already understand the AI architecture and just want to know how the spreadsheet works. We are hoping to see more, but since you have the spreadsheet, you can also work ahead if you have the courage to do so. The two existing lessons show a high-level overview and a unit on tokenization.
We like the idea of putting complex topics into understandable spreadsheets. You won’t really use them, but you can easily dissect them. We’ve given that treatment to DSP and CPUs.
768? Wow! Bring us back to our days of typing in numbers from a program listing in a magazine.
Good ol CoCo Clipboard Magazine
I agree. Was insane enough to do that. Remembered typing at least 4 pages of pure numbers for old visual basic(?) to generate a 3D fractal contoured landscape. Torturous but satisfying to see the result.
I have heard of some who read so deeply in to the documentation that they were wizards with Microsoft Office products. Their tag line was “What do you mean PowerPoint isn’t an Operating System?” That’s how this article feels.
So the AI Act was about regulating the use of spreadsheets after all?
We thought it was Internet Explorer that was going to become sentient, instead it was Excel.
Clippy, specifically, has reached sentience.
When is the next video available?