To build on Paul's comment: When I worked at IBM in those years when spreadsheets went into wide use I noticed quickly that many young employees believed literally what the spreadsheets displayed on their screens to a far greater extent than, say, accountants and others who were aged 40s or 50s. I was one of the latter and on occasion I would see something displayed, or later displayed on a Powerpoint presentation, that did not intuitively seem right and I would challenge the data. That would force a conversation about formulas, assumptions, quality and quantity of the statistical inputs, etc. and then possible alterations in the findings. This was not a new occurrence. It seems every time we encounter a new IT application or tool we have to learn how to use it, improve its performance, then learn where and when to apply it. I suspect that experience affected early users of hammers, tooh picks, and microwave ovens. Jim On Mon, May 12, 2025 at 9:04 AM Ceruzzi, Paul via Members < members@lists.sigcis.org> wrote:
This has happened before: the embrace of spreadsheets like Lotus 1-2-3 by users who were seduced by their power on a PC desktop may have led to the financial excesses of the late 1990s.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45869772_Spreadsheets_and_the_Finan... Paul Ceruzzi ------------------------------ *From:* Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 7, 2025 5:00 PM *To:* Troy Astarte <t.k.astarte@swansea.ac.uk>; Ceruzzi, Paul < CeruzziP@si.edu> *Cc:* Sigcis <members@sigcis.org> *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Perplexity, or ML tools in historical research
External Email - Exercise Caution
Cherry-picking one sentence from Troy:
What I have not found so far is whether there is any requirement to declare the use of ML-based tools in their research.
Since Google now starts with an "AI summary", even Google searches would need to be declared under such a rule.
(Try googling "Does Google AI hallucinate?")
DuckDuckGo is heading in the same direction, but more carefully: https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fspreadprivacy.com%2Fduckassist-launch%2F&data=05%7C02%7CCeruzziP%40si.edu%7Cea9a69451bab48abb56408dd8daa2fec%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C0%7C0%7C638822484297266330%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0OB7RjvvFEsBhJ7x09%2BgqX%2FBszm5Z%2F6OZKtXQDdmAFc%3D&reserved=0 <https://spreadprivacy.com/duckassist-launch/>
Regards Brian Carpenter
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