I have a confession to make: I’m a big fan of spreadsheets. Not mere tables, spreadsheets with all their persnickety math and functions. They’re a great way to store and compute data! I also find the process of making one to be quite rewarding. Frustrating too, when that one formula won’t behave just the way you want it to. But when it all comes together and it’s crunching those numbers, man, what a rush.
I was talking about this with someone once and he told me that I could just have ChatGPT or some generative AI bot make that spreadsheet with all its formulas for me. Which, I suppose is true, but, well, all that’s left would be the spreadsheet. And I guess that’s fine, but what about the journey? When I make a spreadsheet, be it for work, my personal budget, or some other thing that’s best solved that way, the process of making it — and understanding how it works — is part of the fun, as it were. Removing the struggle and friction wracking my memory or looking up how to do something and weaving it all together removes something integral to the whole process.
Because there is joy in the act of creation, even if it is something as silly as a spreadsheet. I’m making something, I’m figuring it out. I’m the one having that wonderful a-ha! moment when it clicks. To have a machine generate that finished spreadsheet for me — I may as well have a machine build a LEGO creation for me or play a video game for me. It’s mistaking the final product for the production.
I saw the exceptional Wildwood last weekend, the latest movie from the stop motion studio Laika. There are so many reasons I loved the movie, a definite part of which is its use of stop motion, an art form that will forever have a very special place in my heart. An art form that, as technology marches on, feels more and more archaic. It’s a laborious process and Wildwood took five years to make. At the movie’s premiere, director Travis Knight was asked if AI could have sped up the process. His response? “That very notion fills me with rage”
Look, that’s the world we live in and the technology seems like it’s only pushing us in one direction, which is everything is going to be simpler. Everything is going to be automated; everything is going to be easier. What I would say to that is that there is something special about the human touch. There is something beautiful about humanity. [x]
He’s talking about the labor of love that is stop motion, but I’d argue it applies as much to any endeavor, including making spreadsheets, painting Star Wars helmets, and keeping a weekly-ish blog. We live in a time when someone can wave a techno-magic wand and reveal an algorithmically-generated spreadsheet or simulacrum of communication. Stop motion takes forever (believe me, I know!), but that’s part of the process and using a techno-magic wand instead removes the very human joy of creation. So it goes with spreadsheets and the artistry of an array function.
