Tell HN: An experiment with natural language spreadsheet formulas

We've been experimenting with AI-assisted writing of spreadsheet formulas. Why? Spreadsheets are the original low-code platform – sprinkle in a little bit of code and you get a big benefit - but that little bit of code is still daunting for many. We thought our spreadsheet app, Grist, might be particularly well suited to AI assistance for two reasons.

First, Grist uses Python as its formula language. Current AI models are particularly good at writing Python code, and getting better (every day it seems like).

Secondly, Grist spreadsheets are relational databases with a schema that can be neatly described as part of a prompt for an AI model, helping it make inferences.

We tested OpenAI models using formulas from our template gallery to approximate real use cases and the results were encouraging - you can browse prompts and outputs here: https://public.getgrist.com/n3jAtRYDSVWe/AI-Formula-dataset

Source code of the experiment is at https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core/pull/345 with a docker image for anyone who wants to play. There are some example videos in a write-up at https://www.getgrist.com/blog/ai-formula-generation-experiment/

This is the brain-child of Alex Hall of https://futurecoder.io/