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Microsoft Warns Excel's New AI Function 'Can Give Incorrect Responses' in High-Stakes Scenarios

(Wednesday August 20, 2025 @11:22AM (msmash) from the garbage-in-hallucinations-out dept.)


Microsoft is testing a COPILOT function in Excel that uses OpenAI's gpt-4.1-mini model to automatically fill spreadsheet cells through natural language prompts. The function can classify feedback, generate summaries, and create tables based on specified cell ranges. Microsoft warns against using the AI function [1]for numerical calculations or scenarios involving legal, regulatory, and compliance implications because COPILOT "can give incorrect responses." The feature processes up to 100 functions every 10 minutes and cannot access information outside the spreadsheet.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/761338/microsoft-excel-ai-copilot-spreadsheet-cell-filling



Annoying. (Score:4, Informative)

by snowsmann ( 313238 )

This feature is super annoying. I'll be trying to fill in cell by cell and constantly need to recheck every time I hit enter because sometimes it will just make up stuff for the rest of the data and it's hard to notice until it's too late sometimes.

The Megajoule PRNG (Score:1)

by evanh ( 627108 )

Why use a millijoule when a Megajoule can do the same thing.

Excel no longer fit for purpose. (Score:4, Insightful)

by Computershack ( 1143409 )

If it can't give the right answer and not only that you've got a spreadsheet application that's literally just making shit up then it's time to stop using it.

Re: (Score:3)

by jriding ( 1076733 )

Said every single upper management person.

But of course... (Score:3)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

...even in high-stakes scenarios they won't allow you to turn CoPilot off entirely so that it won't put you at risk, oh no.

They also forget to acknowledge that while regulatory correctness is of course of big importance when it comes to those sensitive environments, correctness of calculations is EQUALLY important for an average Joe who's doing his sheets for personal reason.

But they always think about the collectives and shit on the potential impact on individuals...

Re: (Score:1)

by gurps_npc ( 621217 )

Your ideology is showing. This has nothing to do with 'the collectives' or the individual.

It is about a bunch of idiots being entranced by their newest toy, "AI" and thinking 'We should use it EVERYWHERE".

Re: But of course... (Score:2)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

Well... Yes. It's my comment. Of course it projects my own ideology. Whose else would it be? Santa Clause's?

Re: (Score:2)

by Gilmoure ( 18428 )

Justifying latest tech scam?

I wonder what is in the flavor-aide the executive tech bros are all drinking deeply of for the last 5 years.

Re: (Score:2)

by rsilvergun ( 571051 )

You can't turn it off because they need to be able to monitor you for training data. Microsoft Windows will now monitor absolutely everything you do with every moment so that Microsoft can train their AIs to replace you.

You're digging your own digital grave and you don't have a choice thanks to 50 years of zero antitrust law enforcement.

It's a political problem not an economic one but people don't like to hear that so...

We know. (Score:5, Funny)

by mcmonkey ( 96054 )

You told us it was AI. Saying it gives incorrect responses is redundant.

Re: We know. (Score:2)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

Should have been called Artificial Information.

Re: (Score:2)

by srmalloy ( 263556 )

Or, better, Artificial Ignorance.

This copilot (Score:2)

by know-nothing cunt ( 6546228 )

is like the one who locks the door to the cockpit while you're taking a leak and then flies the plane into a mountainside.

Just a toy. (Score:4, Insightful)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

That's what it is. We're giving adult people a rattle and make them believe it's a spaceship. Too bad there won't be anyone responsible to change their nappy when they shit themselves while playing.

WTF?!! (Score:4, Insightful)

by Gilmoure ( 18428 )

[Why The Fark] would I want a feature that inputs bad data?!!

That performs bad calculations?!!

Shit, just make a tool that generates Lorem Ipsum text across a grid of X by Y cells and be done with it.

Maybe a boost for LibreOffice? (Score:3)

by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 )

If MS makes this feature (anti-feature?) difficult or impossible to turn off, might it increase LibreOffice adoption?

I suppose it won't have much of an impact, because MS has become quite expert at raising the temperature just slowly enough to stop the frogs from jumping out of the pot. Still, it's nice to think that their push to control their users' experience, and to force them to subscription models with advertising baked in, might someday result in a huge "fuck off" and a mass migration to free-and-open alternatives.

If a computer doesn't have to be consistent ... (Score:1)

by Snert32 ( 10404345 )

If a computer doesn't have to be consistent, it can be anything else.

Bet it won't count low (Score:2)

by John.Banister ( 1291556 ) *

When they start using it to charge you for Excel by the document, I bet it won't count low.

Call it the (Score:2)

by Tablizer ( 95088 )

...Darwin Award Function. If you rely on a bot to make key decisions, you deserve whatever mayhem the bot deals you.

= DarwinAwardGPT("Your prompt request")

Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords observed this,
The ten thousand things would develop naturally.
If they still desired to act,
They would return to the simplicity of formless substance.
Without for there is no desire.
Without desire there is.
And in this way all things would be at peace.