How Google taught Bard to doubt itself

September 28, 2023

“Knowledge is the antidote to fear”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Welcome to the new look Miscellany. If you have modelling-related news, resources
or events that you’d like to share with 48,000 of the world’s best modellers, please
email cassandra.brightley@gridlines.com.

AI : How Google taught Bard to doubt itself

AI chatbots do not draw on a database of established facts to give their answers.
Instead they make probabilistic guesses which can often end up being “confidently
wrong”.

This week Google introduced a checking feature into Bard, its AI chatbot. On request
Bard will read its own response and evaluate whether there is content across the
web to substantiate it. Read more.

Modelling : The Financial Modelling Handbook published

Did I mention that I’ve written a book on Financial Modelling?

It captures the lessons I’ve learned from building hundreds of models and teaching
modelling to thousands of students from the world’s leading companies.

I promise I won’t keep banging on about it.

Events : Global Excel Summit focusing on AI

Registration has opened for next year’s Global Excel Summit. The hybrid event runs
from February 6th to 8th next year, in London and online.

With more speakers still to be announced the line up already looks excellent. The
focus this year is on AI; with the things moving so quickly it looks set to be an
unmissable event. Find out more.

Tech : Microsoft leaks 38TB of sensitive data

Microsoft’s AI research team mistakenly shared a link that exposed 38TB of the
company’s private data, including backups of employee computers with sensitive
information.

The error happened when they provided a link for users to download training data,
granting full access to Microsoft’s Azure storage account. As for right now, Microsoft
is claiming that no customer data was compromised. Read more.

Miscellany jobs

If you have a modelling related job that you’d like to include in the Miscellany please
email cassandra.brightley@gridlines.com.
Head of Financial Planning & Analysis – JUMO, South Africa
Financial Analyst/Senior Financial Analyst – Ashdown Group, UK
Financial Analyst/Modeller – BFPeople, UK
Financial Planning & Analysis Manager – Sprinklr, US

Resources for modellers

Introduction to modelling standards. There are numerous different standardised
approaches to modelling. They are more alike than they are different. They all
emphasise similar elements of good practice. What’s important is to pick one and
apply it consistently.

Building integrity checks in financial models. Hedieh Kianyfard publishes a lot of
useful resources for modellers. This guide is a useful road map on the typical checks
to include in any project finance model.

The missing ribbon shortcuts in Excel for Mac. One barrier that has stopped me
from switching to Excel for Mac is the lack of ribbon keyboard shortcuts. Accelerator
Keys addresses this. It adds all the missing ribbon shortcuts and is a must-have for
Excel for Mac users.

Gridlines news

We’ve been busy hiring in our Delhi office and are delighted to welcome the
following new team members:

Chintan Kothari – Analyst
Vishnu Agrawal – Analyst
Aman Jain – Senior Analyst
Saurabh Chopra – Consultant
Nishant Agarwal – Analyst

It’s not long ago that we got out first score on the model audit league table. And so
it’s pretty exciting to recently have recently landed in second place by deal volume on the Information league table. It’s likely a mid season blip but shows how hard our awesome model audit team have been working to put Model 2.0 on the map. Read more.