[HN Gopher] Flame: A small language model for spreadsheet formul...
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Flame: A small language model for spreadsheet formulas (2023)
Author : azhenley
Score : 101 points
Date : 2025-01-22 03:22 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
| pvg wrote:
| Small thread at the time
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34607738
| sixhobbits wrote:
| I wish Google had spent their efforts building stuff like this
| into Google Sheets instead of launching a Gemini tab that follows
| you everywhere and says "sorry I can't help with that" if you try
| to use it
| bsenftner wrote:
| When you look into the data structure and organization that is
| underneath Google Sheets, and if you have any experience with
| LLMs and structured outputs, Google shit in their sheets as far
| as having an overly complex internal representation for a
| spreadsheet. Their data representation needs to be translated
| into something far easier to work with for machine learning
| models to work with that data, without a massive amount of
| filtering just to reach the spreadsheet data itself.
| gcr wrote:
| Or we can make models that are used to accepting spreadsheet
| data as input. It's probably just a different kinds of
| positional embedding even.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Believe it or not, we already do, it is just not obvious
| and so far, I've only exchanged info with very few that
| realize this, and how to access that capability.
| daveguy wrote:
| > When you look into the data structure and organization that
| is underneath Google Sheets
|
| I don't use Google Sheets very often, so maybe this is
| obvious to someone that does. But, how do you look at the
| data structure and organization underneath Google Sheets? Are
| you an employee or is this available to the general public?
| Through an api?
| bsenftner wrote:
| Look at their API and the data structures it uses, the
| relationships between them. It's more complex than
| necessary, ridiculously so, it feels like a student's
| learning project they abandoned out of boredom. API
| consistency, what's that?
| dartos wrote:
| I think if you trained a MLM to replace certain tokens in a
| CSV with formulas, you can accomplish that without worrying
| about the internal representation of a spreadsheet.
| bsenftner wrote:
| My point is that no training is necessary, none at all. The
| major LLMs already know the internal data structures and
| APIs of open source spreadsheets, because that information
| is in their training data, all open source software has
| their source code in major LLM training data. The trick is
| accessing that knowledge.
| bckr wrote:
| Is it a prompt trick?
| bsenftner wrote:
| Not so much of a "trick" as it is understanding how to
| create a context the retrieves/generates from the
| more/most accurate training data.
|
| In the case of open source software, a specific open
| source app or library or API, often all it takes is to
| reference a library or API by name, use a few terms
| specific to that library or service, and you'll get an
| LLM context that retrieves/generates from that area of
| knowledge. That context knows information about the
| library/API that is useful for integration and will tell
| you all about them just by explaining what you're trying
| to do. Note this is essentially conversational R&D, which
| is then backed up by verifying the data structures,
| library calls and/or APIs are indeed as they are being
| discussed. I include verifying checks during the
| conversation, rather than build a strategy and then check
| if what was discussed is even possible.
|
| If an integration is possible, if the above conversation
| yields useful data and function/API calls (which they
| tend to do), then it's just a matter of a well structured
| prompt that's probably generating structured output. The
| end result is a process where a useful library/API call
| retrieves essential data of some sort that the user can
| ask questions about, modify, and if modified the prompt
| generates the data that is then fed back into the
| library/API.
| nashashmi wrote:
| That would have been the future had OpenAI and the other
| company not ventured to offer AI search power in a chat window.
| small incremental AI implementations would have been the norm.
| Like auto reply in email. Or email summary at end of day.
| matltc wrote:
| I'm trying to get _out_ of spreadsheet hell, not embrace it
| ActionHank wrote:
| But the sell here is that your boss goes to spreadsheet hell
| and you go to the unemployment line.
| crawftv wrote:
| This just means your boss needs a spreadsheet model guy.
| "Bosses" would rather die than enter a formula in
| spreadsheet.
| dmd wrote:
| This may have been true in 1985, but it is definitely not
| true today. "Bosses" _love_ making massively complex
| spreadsheets.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Many of them love consuming and faffing about with
| complex spreadsheets but I just watched my CTO cut &
| paste cells with menu items and the mouse, in a round-
| about A->C, B->A, C->B way. And the font is comic sans,
| and everything is sorted by color. Any of the more
| sophisticated tools or a macro is way beyond this one.
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