# Spreadsheets and AI **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2026, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975 "2026-02-25T21:38:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/61 "2026-02-27T17:20:24Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It’s worth disregarding jobs on the list that have “no formal educational requirements,” since we’re talking about what should be an educational requirements. Well, no, it’s not, because in context we’re talking about high school. Certainly I think spreadsheets are useful enough to be taught by college, for certain majors or possibly as a GE, but it doesn’t have to be something everyone needs to graduate high school with. Not because I think it’s useless, mind you, just because I think the curriculum space is limited and there are MORE important topics that could be included. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/62 "2026-02-27T17:23:38Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > So which of those thousand finance apps should the schools use in the financial management class? or just show them how you can accomplish all of the basic tracking and decision making needed by setting up an Excel sheet? I don’t think it matters. The tooling changes every few years. I think the math classes are often taught now with some online graphical calculator apps (Desmos?), and you can do the basics there well enough. Or on pen and paper. If it happens to use spreadsheets, ok, fine, why not? But it’s the difference between talking about checking and savings and CDs and investment risk and such, maybe including a few barebones spreadsheets… vs a whole semester dedicated to vlookups and pivot tables and correlations and such. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/63 "2026-02-27T17:24:34Z")
Eh, never mind. Asked and answered ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/64 "2026-02-27T17:26:02Z")
When I was in HS we had to learn matrix math. I thought it was completely useless, when am I ever going to have to do this? Surprise! ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/65 "2026-02-27T17:26:38Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > But how many people actually end up in careers where they have to work with data and calculations at all? That seems like a niche only for a few white collar jobs. I’ll use an example from my place of work, a medium-sized manufacturer in NE Ohio. People who use spreadsheets every day to do their job: Everyone in Sales Everyone in Engineering & Drafting Everyone in Finance Everyone in HR Everyone in IT Everyone in Shipping / Receiving Everyone in Maintenance Supervisors and Team Leaders in Production People who don’t use spreadsheets to do their job: Assembly line workers Metal shop line workers. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/66 "2026-02-27T17:28:21Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > But it’s the difference between talking about checking and savings and CDs and investment risk and such, maybe including a few barebones spreadsheets… vs a whole semester dedicated to vlookups and pivot tables and correlations and such. I don’t think anyone is even suggesting dedicating a whole semester to vlookups and pivot tables, etc. I explicitly said that basic spreadsheet usage should be taught and can be taught in classes that they already take. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/67 "2026-02-27T17:28:27Z")
Yes… and? Isn’t that my point? We shouldn’t be wasting time teaching spreadsheets to everyone if the blue collar workforce might never need it, while some of the other examples could make big differences in their lives and health. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/68 "2026-02-27T17:30:41Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > I explicitly said that basic spreadsheet usage should be taught and can be taught in classes that they already take. I missed that part, sorry. If so, I think that’s totally fine. The same way we might spend a class day or two teaching them how to use the library. I had mistakenly thought you meant spreadsheets should be its own subject / class. If that’s not the case, I’m so sorry for arguing against a strawman 😅 ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/69 "2026-02-27T17:32:28Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Yes… and? Isn’t that my point? We shouldn’t be wasting time teaching spreadsheets to everyone if the blue collar workforce might never need it, while some of the other examples could make big differences in their lives and health. My point is that the number of ppl in the company who use spreadsheets daily outnumber the people who’s job is just to stand at the line and insert tab A into slot B. And the Maint, S&R, and Prod Supervisors/Leads are all still blue collar - they didn’t go to university to learn their jobs. I’m just saying it’s a useful tool for a lot more than a “few niche white collar jobs”. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/70 "2026-02-27T17:35:39Z")
Understood, and that makes sense. Again, I apologize for misunderstanding your initial stance (my own fault for having missed that part of your post). I don’t think there’s any harm (and in fact plenty of good) to teaching the very basics, alongside basic word processing and such. It wouldn’t have to take more than a few hours to do that. What I was against was something you were never even arguing for (that it should be a significant item in the curriculum). I’m sorry for misunderstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/71 "2026-02-27T17:44:21Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > When I was in HS we had to learn matrix math. I thought it was completely useless, when am I ever going to have to do this? What did you mean by this, by the way? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/72 "2026-02-27T18:03:57Z")
Sorry for being unclear. Matrix math was something taught to us high schoolers in Algebra 1/Algebra 2. It is a rectangular grid of numbers organized into rows and columns, used to represent data and linear transformations via addition, multiplication, etc. I, in my high school-aged certainty, thought that this was some bullshit that I would never use in my life. Surprise - it’s the effective foundation of Visicalc/Excel, and while I never used _manual_ matrix math after that class, I definitely used the _concepts_ of it throughout my career. Now whether or not our teacher would have better served us by taking the three weeks spent on matrix math and taught us Visicalc/Lotus 1-2-3 is another issue, but to me the surprise was that the one thing I was absolutely convinced was an utter waste of my time turned out to be one of the foundations of my working life. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/73 "2026-02-27T18:27:05Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > People who don’t use spreadsheets to do their job: Doctors. Dentists. Veterinarians. Nurses. Attorneys. Judges. Creative content producers of any sort. Therapists. Many academics (some do). Scientists (manage data yes but not with these sorts of spreadsheets.) And yes most of the trades. Maybe some of them run their business and use some basic business software but they are not creating much in it. No question that as someone who does not create in spreadsheets I likely underestimated how many people do. But you definitely underestimate how many highly paid and satisfying jobs do not. We understand data. We understand asking the right questions and filtering out the noise. We even value clear data communication. And there are lots of us. Where is the ball _going_? What skills will be least likely obsolete in ten or so years? I introduced my poll knowing we are an old crowd. And a crowd that is overwhelmingly skeptical of AI. _I_ am both older and skeptical of AI. I am nevertheless very confident that within a very years most creation of spreadsheets will be by stating what your dataset consists of and what questions you want to be able to answer in real time, and then asking them. I am also very sure that those in college today would answer these survey questions with greater confidence that creating spreadsheets will be looked upon like using a slide rule within the decade. Likely within five years. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/74 "2026-02-27T18:44:40Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Scientists (manage data yes but not with these sorts of spreadsheets.) It would astonish me if spreadsheets are not in near-universal use among research scientists. I suspect that plenty of nurses use spreadsheets as part of inventory management systems. Attorneys are likely to have use of them to manage caseloads. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen spreadsheets pop up on the screen at my dental office as they’re looking at things like patient history. > [@DSeid](#): > > I am nevertheless very confident that within a very years most creation of spreadsheets will be by stating what your dataset consists of and what questions you want to be able to answer in real time, and then asking them. I am also very sure that those in college today would answer these survey questions with greater confidence that creating spreadsheets will be looked upon like using a slide rule within the decade. Likely within five years. I do not share your confidence. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/75 "2026-02-27T18:46:26Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If I need a more complex formula than what I currently know, I Google instructions for writing that formula: by learning how to do it myself, I’ll gain a deeper understanding of the data and of the analysis I want to conduct. This is what I do. For context: I work at a large bank. Excel spreadsheets are ubiquitously used as tools even for important tasks because there are a lot of calculations in banking that only require simple arithmetic (for instance, converting Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars or summing up the values of different products). Tasks that are truly critical will get written using a proper software language (like Java or C), but that means making any changes is much less flexible because it has to go as an official request to the software development team (which has limited resources) rather than having the user simply change one formula in a spreadsheet At my previous banking job, there was a push to eliminate any Excel spreadsheet reporting and move it to a Python-based system. That resulted in a lot of very knowledgeable employees being required to become novice-level Python programmers (with very little training or support from managers), which felt like a waste of human resources to me. There is also a ton of lip service being paid to figuring out how to use AI for reporting purposes (i.e., to reduce employee headcount), but I haven’t seen any real traction yet. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/76 "2026-02-27T18:50:05Z")
How do scientists use Excel? > **[Reddit - The heart of the internet](https://www.reddit.com/r/datascience/comments/i2jogq/fellow_data_scientists_do_you_ever_use_microsoft/)** A SUNY course specifically about how nurses can use Excel: > **[Microsoft Excel For Nursing - SUNY Westchester Community College](https://www.sunywcc.edu/academics/majors-programs/microsoft-excel-for-nursing/)** > > Nursing professionals and Nursing support staff learn how to use Excel for analyzing clinical, administrative and financial information. A course approved by the Florida Bar for attorneys on how to use spreadsheets: > **[Mastering Microsoft Excel and Outlook: A Guide for Attorneys | LegalFuel](https://www.legalfuel.com/mastering-microsoft-excel-and-outlook-a-guide-for-attorneys/)** A company trying to persuade dentists to stop using Excel and buy their product instead: > **[AADOM PODcast - Ditch the Excel Spreadsheets, The Solution is Kleer](https://www.dentalmanagers.com/blog/podcast-ditch-excel-spreadsheets-kleer-solution/)** > > Spreadsheets are undeniably invaluable for office work. However, attempting to use a tool not explicitly designed for your desired task – like your membership plan – proves highly ineffective. If you're an Office Manager expanding Historical fiction novelist advising other novelists how to use Excel to keep everything organized: > **[Reddit - The heart of the internet](https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/comments/17qsm6x/interested_in_using_excel_to_organize_your_book/)** ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/77 "2026-02-27T19:04:47Z")
I certainly would not claim that none of those ever look at spreadsheets. And a _few_ in these jobs may even create them. _I_ get business and coding information presented to me in them. I will even use it to search by specific codes used by different providers. That is very different than creating them or manipulating them to answer questions about the data. The latter is what we are talking about. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I do not share your confidence No shit. 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/78 "2026-02-27T19:10:48Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > > [@DSeid](#): > > > > I certainly would not claim that none of those ever look at spreadsheets. > > > > … > > > > That is very different than creating them or manipulating them to answer questions about the data. The latter is what we are talking about. None of the links I provided were to people who simply “look at spreadsheets.” Is there any possibility that you’re underestimating how common their use is in all those fields that you said “don’t use spreadsheets to do their job”? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/79 "2026-02-27T19:20:32Z")
As for AI, I’ve lived my whole life in the middle of a tech revolution. When I was a kid we had a manual typewriter, but my atrocious handwriting meant that I got an EP Brother typewriter real early on, with a screen that previewed 16 characters before they were typed on the page. I graduated to a Vic 20, an Apple Plus at school, then an Apple 2C at home where we got the first printer, revolutionizing how we typed. I learned to touch-type on an electric typewriter and transferred those skills to Microsoft Word in high school, and worked my way through college as a typist for doctors and attorneys. Afterwards I wrote for a living for awhile, and worked as a secretary for awhile, typing documents for my bosses, until I became a teacher, where I started by using Word and transitioned to Google Docs. The tech has changed drastically–but the typing skills I learned in junior high have remained useful more than a third of a century later. If I’d failed to learn to use that electric typewriter because of some vague notion that PCs were going to render it obsolete, I would’ve really missed out. AI might be a much bigger change than computers. Or it might be a giant bubble made of 10% meat and 90% hype. I’m inclined to the latter belief. But even if it’s a huge change, knowing the fundamentals of how something works remains useful. We spend many weeks teaching students how to perform long division, then send them out into the world with a calculator in every pocket. Even if AI completely removes the need for adults to write effective formulae, teaching the principles and practices of writing them is at least as useful as teaching long division. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975/80 "2026-02-27T19:39:46Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Is there any possibility that you’re underestimating how common their use is in all those fields that you said “don’t use spreadsheets to do their job”? Much less than the possibility that you vastly overestimate how many people do. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > if AI completely removes the need for adults to write effective formulae, teaching the principles and practices of writing them is at least as useful as teaching long division. And here is where we vastly diverge. The coding language of spreadsheets is NOT fundamental to intellectual process of data analysis. I get that you think AI is mostly hype. This particular use case seems to me to be the low hanging fruit. Which part of the following is outside of current AI capabilities if the systems are built around them? 1. Take written and verbal information and identify the data that is desired within it (demographics, dates, product codes, _whatever_ …) 2. Enter that information into a database. 3. Answer questions about information and patterns within the database, including what-if scenarios. 4. Identify subsets within that database that meet certain criteria. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spreadsheets-and-ai/1027975.md?page=5)