The AI built the HTML editor I could not find anywhere
He needed a free HTML editor to paste in HTML code from the AI, but the ones he found were poor. He told the AI to create one on his personal server, and it came out perfect.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Hobbies
Making things, learning and having fun · 960 ideasGPT is formalizing a researcher's papers in Lean, about 3000 declarations in
A mathematician is using GPT-6 Astra to formalize results from his papers in Lean. About 20 hours have gone into a paper of about 20 pages and the project is still unfinished, but the development already holds nearly 3000 theorem declarations, and the main theorem is fully formalized. Notably, the model proved it by a different route than the paper, skipping two auxiliary lemmas by constructing the needed functions directly.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
I asked the AI to find my old talks. My site now lists 115 presentations.
His talk archive site had been a work in progress for years. He asked the AI to help track down records of talks he has given, and the site now contains 115 presentations covering 26 years.
GPT helped me fix my Bitcoin miner and build it new firmware
GPT helped him fix his Bitcoin miner. He also created his own improved, branded user interface and firmware for it.
He built an Android app for the Magic league he plays with his wife, with life trackers that log wins and rounds on their own
He and his wife play in a Magic: The Gathering league where they open new product every month and keep rotating their deck builds and strategies. The tracking used to live in spreadsheets and note apps. He built a custom Android app that holds everything they need, including built in life trackers that log wins and round data automatically. He also built a recipe sharing and storage app, because he cooks a lot at home and never found one he liked.
The AI fixed my dead 3D scanner software and it works again
His 3D Systems Sense 2 scanner had no working software left, since the maker and the other scanner apps had all dropped support. The AI updated the program he uses so modern RTX graphics cards work and found a data limit that capped his sensor at half its native resolution, and he later posted that it works.
Gift app built to stop giving books people already own
After giving someone a book they already had, he used AI CLI to build a small app for gift ideas. It suggests gifts from his own 5 star book reviews and the other person's Goodreads wishlist.
My agent checked every iPhone app with no ads and no in app purchases and built a directory of 149
He was tired of free apps that are ad spam or paywalls, so he had the AI find every iPhone app with no ads and no in app purchases. The agent verified 149 apps and built them into a directory. Deals in it are checked daily and everything is rechecked weekly.
The AI reverse engineered a menu bar app and modernised it in about 90 minutes
The AI reverse-engineered a Mac menubar app, modernized it and added Apple Silicon support in about 90 minutes.
90 minsaved
The AI scraped my Kindle library and built a spreadsheet of all 2,051 books
She had the AI use the AI for Chrome extension to scrape her whole Kindle library on Amazon. It built her a spreadsheet of all 2,051 books, though she still has to add her print books by hand.
The AI recommended plants for his spider enclosures without checking pesticide treatment; about $60 of plants were unusable
A keeper of jumping spiders asked the agent for houseplants for his animals’ enclosures and bought from a general online shop it recommended. The agent never checked whether the seller treats its plants. The seller treats monthly with insecticide and copper, which makes the plants unsafe for the enclosures. About $60 of plants were unusable, and he lost time arranging a refund.
$60at stake
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Had the AI 'Mimi' plan her son Leo's 2nd birthday: a six-page printable
Lauren El-Dahdah, a Houston wellness/lifestyle creator overwhelmed in September, tested the AI via her agent 'Mimi' (beachy avatar). For her son Leo's 2nd birthday, Mimi created a six-page printable 'Leo's Born 2 Ball Party Plan' (sports theme, Sept 26): countdown timeline, guest communication templates, daily task checklists, shopping lists organized by zone, and a day-of run-of-show.
$25.63
The AI set up Rockbox on my old iPod and synced my whole 290GB music library
He had the AI install and set up Rockbox on his rebuilt 1TB iPod, reformat the drive, install the bootloader and sync his whole 290GB music library straight from his home server. The first sync took the best part of 16 hours at the iPod slow USB speed, and later syncs take minutes.
Planned a backyard drive-in movie theater for the kids: found toy cars
Creator's agent 'Poppy' helped stage a backyard drive-in movie night for her kids: it found toy cars on Facebook Marketplace, messaged sellers, sourced decorations, built a shopping list, ordered groceries (popcorn, chicken nuggets, carrots), and produced a printable family fall bucket list.
Turn last night's concert setlist into a Spotify playlist in two minutes
The AI took the setlist from a concert the user attended and built it as a Spotify playlist within two minutes.
GPT Work faked the see through parts of my animation sprites
He had GPT Work make a few sprite images for an animation, and they looked fine. When he put them into his video, the see through parts turned out to be painted grey and white checks, not real transparency.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The AI fixed the capture card driver problem he had been sitting on, and posted the fix
The AI took care of an Epiphan VGA2USB driver problem he had been sitting on, driver posted on GitHub.
His agent plugin let him leave X11 for Wayland after years of trying
He built a plugin that lets his agent drive the Sway window manager directly, and used it to switch from X11 to Wayland, something he says did not work for him before. He now asks the agent things like which window is taking the most memory and has it start and stop power profiles.
The AI restored my damaged video, a job I used to need a special tool for
He says some tools disappear because a chatbot can now do their job reliably. The AI restored a corrupted video for him, something he would previously have used a specialized tool for.
The AI ported the programs I wrote at 11 so they run on my Psion again
He got a Psion Series 5 and a USB to RS232 adapter working and saw the OPL programs he wrote as an 11 year old run again. He had the AI port some of the OPL code that had changed between the Series 3a and the Series 5.
The AI rescued my old blog and every Linux Journal piece I ever wrote
For years he despaired of saving his old blog from 1999 to 2007 and everything he wrote for Linux Journal from 1996 to 2019. He asked the AI for help, and the AI rescued both sets of writing and put them back online at searls.com, though some Linux Journal pieces are still missing.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Fable took over an e-ink screen overnight using a webcam to see its own work
Fable left overnight to get full control of an e-ink screen via a webcam capture round trip, meaningfully finished in a couple of hours (episode reported in-window).
Automated daily job searching: uploaded his resume into AI with a detailed
Vani Reddy Puppireddy demonstrated the workflow she uses instead of manually checking job portals every day: she uploads her resume into the AI chat interface and enters a detailed prompt specifying pay expectations, vendor portals and job types. Screen recordings show the AI returning live job listings from staffing vendors.
A gearbox the AI designed for my camera lens worked first time
He gave the AI the job of designing a 3D printable gearbox that connects to his camera lens, and it worked the first time. In the same post he notes the AI needed two tries at a simple joke answer.
A teacher built a chemistry space game site that his classes play in crews
He teaches chemistry and built a website with AI where his students form crews, make an avatar and a spaceship, and travel between planets that stand for class units, entering learning academies to fight boss battles or other crews. He funds it himself, uses AI for some of the interactive lessons and Canva for graphics, and posted asking how to work more efficiently and use fewer tokens.
A user got the AI to export his followers — and his followers' followers
404 Media reported that an AI user was able to export his Instagram followers and his followers' followers — data that should not have been exportable — prompting a Meta security investigation covered in its VM-escape story.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The AI modeled my Turkish lamp in Blender while I rode my exercise bike
Using the AI with Blender, he had a Turkish lamp modeled from his description, then brought the model into Clip Studio. The red lamp on the left was finished from instructions he sent remotely while riding an exercise bike.
The AI helped me port a 1989 game to the 3DS, and two more
He ported BlockOut, the 1989 3D Tetris, to the Nintendo 3DS with AI, with stereoscopic 3D, sound, touch menus and SD saves. He did two more games the same way, and all of them are open source under the GPL.
Turned a whole book into a chapter-by-chapter podcast series with subagents handling
Author Matt Deitke fed an entire book to the AI and had it generate a chapter-by-chapter podcast website, with subagents handling chapters in parallel. The output was a finished multi-episode podcast series derived from the book.
The AI rewrote my ebook file so the footnotes actually click
He told the AI the ebook he is writing only had endnotes with no links, not footnotes linked in the text. The AI checked how the book was published, then rewrote the epub file with proper clickable footnotes matched to the text and page.
Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.