How spreadsheets will save or trigger the downfall of modern civilisation

We are yet to live in a post-spreadsheet world

So here’s my theory. Behind most magical AI, data analytics systems that are making millions and billions now, there is probably a mighty spreadsheet program sitting behind the scenes. A tiny error and misconfiguration will take the whole world down. This probably includes ChatGPT-- I think ChatGPT is a giant spreadsheet.

Image source: https://datavizblog.com/2019/07/05/dataviz-humor-math-skills-vs-stage-of-life/

The prompt for this week’s newsletter came from a line buried inside an article in The Economist entitled “The failure of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried will leave deep scars”.

If you do not know who Sam Bankman-Fried is or heard about the FTX controversy that ensued — I will save you some time. It is a Ponzi plus pyramid scheme with modern tech hype of crypto, bitcoin and a dose of the big American Silicon Valley dream. Over the past few weeks, a lot has been written about this drama. The Economist does a decent job (even though they are mostly looking at the macro issue). This tweet probably sums it up nicely:

Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact

Imagine McDonald's makes its own money, let's call them clown-bucks, keeps most of it, and sells some to the market. McDonald's then uses their remaining clown-bucks as collateral for actual loans. And then people remember clown-bucks aren't real.

And check this also:

Trung Phan @TrungTPhan

The FTX story just gets wilder. Earlier this year, SBF invested $11.5m in Farmington State Bank in Washington St. (nearly double the bank’s value). It’s the 26th smallest bank in the US. It serves a town of 146 people. Has only 3 employees. And looks like my parent’s garage.

In any case, back to the spreadsheets. Here’s a direct quote from The Economist article:

The details of precisely what went wrong at ftx will spill out in bankruptcy proceedings and possibly criminal ones over the coming months and years. But the early evidence, in particular a balance-sheet obtained by the Financial Times, does not make for pretty reading. In the spreadsheet, which metadata suggest Mr Bankman-Fried created, ftx appears to hold about $1bn of real money or money-like assets, including currencies and stablecoins (crypto-tokens pegged to the dollar), against some $9bn of liabilities owed to customers.

Let’s disregard the billions of dollar issue for a moment. You are telling me that this company handling billions of crypto transactions on blockchains uses spreadsheets!! Why could not they put the balance sheet in the blockchain!!!

So I asked ChatGPT (again I think ChatGPT is a bot powered by spreadsheets) about this (like everyone else who is wasting their time doing this). Btw, if you want a critical look at issues related to technology like ChatGPT, ABEBA BIRHANE and DEBORAH RAJI’s article in Wired. Also

Gary Marcus

covered it in his newsletter as well.

Now back to asking ChatGPT about spreadsheets. This will give you an idea about what the heck is this thing. Here are my screenshots from when I asked this system about spreadsheets.

Ok, fair enough. But there are well documented major fiascos that were caused by errors in spreadsheets. So what about those? Here’s a 2017 article that concluded — “Excel errors: How Microsoft's spreadsheet may be hazardous to your health”. Also, see “Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates”.

So I asked the mighty Oracle about this:

I think a system that is run by a mighty force of spreadsheets will probably say things like this. Sarcasm and joking aside, it is important to remind everyone that digital spreadsheets in one form or another have been around since 1979. Microsoft’s Excel was first released in 1985 and still going strong.

Image source: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/spreadsheets_2x.png

And this might be an old article but shows how ubiquitous and powerful spreadsheets are! Here’s a interesting 2009 article (“How spreadsheets get us to mars and beyond”) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Spreadsheets, spreadsheets everywhere and nary a page of documentation. JPL is NASA’s prime center for deep space missions. In all of our missions, spreadsheets have played a major role in managing parts lists, managing requirements, monitoring progress, planning budgets, developing the initial concept designs, and providing the backbone of our infrastructure. In this paper we will share our lessons learned in building various spreadsheet intensive systems and applications. Based on our experience in developing and using these various systems we will propose a number of exploratory ideas as to the dimensions of spreadsheet system complexity. In addition, we will share our approaches to documentation, review, and verification of these types of systems.

So there you have it. I think spreadsheets are running the world. And this also confirms ChatGPT is basically a giant, evil spreadsheet:

We are yet to live in a post-spreadsheet world. Good night and good luck!