Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

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Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

Writing Formulas

Using AI to Write Formulas

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While you can use AI to write some Airtable formulas, keep the following in mind:

At times AI makes up formula functions that do not exist in the Airtable formula language. AI suggests functions that exist in spreadsheets but not in Airtable.

How complex is your formula? While AI can product short formulas, the more complex logic you want to perform, the less likely it is that AI will produce satisfactory results.

How well can you articulate what you want the formula to do? The hardest part of writing a formula is often knowing exactly what the formula should do in all situations, not drafting the code.

How comfortable are you at identifying and testing edge cases? If you don’t consider edge cases, the function may product unexpected results. The worst case scenario is not having the function produce an error. The worst case scenario is that the function silently produces the wrong results without you ever realizing it, and you make important decisions based on those wrong results.

Who will maintain the function? If AI writes the function and you don’t fully understand it, what will you do when you want the function updated? Updating the function will likely add complexity, and the more complex the logic, the less likely that AI will product satisfactory results.

As of May 6, 2023, ChatGPT still suggests Airtable formulas that use functions from Excel and Sheets that do not exist in Airtable.

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