If you’ve been plodding along with Google Sheets without really knowing much about formulae, this is the AI tool for you. Formula God is an artificial intelligence utility that has one goal; turning you into the God of Google Sheets.
We’ve written so much about artificial intelligence lately, and the industry itself keeps producing more exciting systems. You’ve likely already heard about ChatGPT. Well, this is sort of like ChatGPT but for Google Sheets. I say this because this tool lets you talk to Google Sheets. That’s literally Formula God’s slogan.
I haven’t been able to try it out yet, but the way it appears to work is that you simply tell the AI what you need to do, and it translates that command into a format that Google Sheets understands; formulae. This is the perfect tool for all of us who have to use Google Sheets in some capacity at work, home, or school, but who have very little in the way of an idea of what’s actually going on.
The utility is currently only accepting applications to join a waitlist, but we expect more information to be released concerning Formula God in the near future. The rate at which AI is being developed and released demands that this utility takes its place among the AI that are already in use today, like Dall-E and ChatGPT.
Blessing or a curse?
Unfortunately, researching this utility provided more questions than answers. Not questions about how it actually works, because that seems relatively self-explanatory, but deeper, existential questions. I’ve been asking myself a lot of the same questions one does when one is forced to confront one’s religious beliefs or place in the world. The biggest question I’ve yet to find an answer to, is whether this utility, and the countless others that do niche tasks, is a blessing or a curse.
The core issue here is that humanity seems to be at a crossroads. Will we succumb to the power of AI and potentially allow our own innate abilities to degrade? Or will we eventually reject this technology in favor of keeping our abilities and capabilities? We were born with such incredible brains that can process so much information and put it to use. We train our entire lives to pick up new skills and expand our own identity. Does a heavy reliance on AI put our abilities and own intelligence in jeopardy? Or does it simply act as an extra hand or an extra brain when we need it?
With so many new tools coming out these days, each with its own niche programming or innate deep learning methods, it’ll be interesting to see how this question ends up being answered by the majority of the human species. It’s all good and well to use these services and facilities for a bit of fun, or to increase productivity. But, I can’t help but wonder if we’re allowing artificial intelligence to replace our own intelligence, bit by digital bit.
