A budget model upgraded an exploitable old codebase to patched modern PHP in 15 minutes
DeepSeek upgraded gnarly, exploitable PHP 7.x code to fully patched PHP 8.3 in about 15 minutes for a few dimes of tokens.
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Work
Jobs, side gigs and small business · 1,669 ideasAn agent erased a full season of a TV show; hundreds of days of work gone
An agent erased a full season of The Challenge Sweden; hundreds of days of work gone.
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Two one click scripts handle the encrypted Excel files that arrive by email and keep the CRM updated
He had the AI on Windows develop two PowerShell scripts for multi step data processing, each with a small window on top that launches the whole process with a single click. Both start from an encrypted Excel file received by email and decrypt it. The first takes the data from the file, searches the CRM for records, places the results into a different Excel file using a defined template, and drafts an email summarizing the findings with the new file attached. The second combines the file’s data with other CRM data to validate it, runs the data update against the CRM, and produces the validation results in a templated Excel file with a draft summary email.
I made a Chinese lesson video with AI, the AI and a voice tool
He produced a Mandarin grammar lesson video from his own writing from a few years ago. The AI made the visuals with Remotion, the AI did the drawings and BytePlus TTS did the voices, and the finished lesson is up on YouTube.
Run my local newsletter for 6,000 neighbours: research, write, sell the ads
A local publisher’s the AI research, write and sell the ads for a Thursday paper read by 6,000 neighbours. The bots cover the whole production loop of a real local news product, not just the writing.
Set up a dead man's switch for my business
A solo developer who lost his business after a 2012 hospitalization built a self-hosted dead man's switch with AI so his projects and clients are handled if he is incapacitated. It has run for weeks, ships with 42 unit tests, and clients already cite it as a trust feature.
Asked the AI to add one sprint. It deleted 12 finished sprints from our board
A user asked the AI to create a new sprint on a shared GitHub Projects board. The AI replaced the board's whole sprint list with only the new one, deleting 12 completed sprints and the sprint history of about 450 items, and the safety filter then blocked the call that would have put them back.
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His small businesses run on separate AI agents for inbox, outreach and quotes, and nothing goes out without his phone approval
He runs his own small businesses with AI agents. Each job has its own agent with its own instructions file: one triages the inbox, one handles outreach, one prepares quotes. The agents only draft; he approves every email and quote from his phone before it goes out. A brief arrives at a fixed time every morning with the overnight replies, what is waiting on him, and the follow-ups for the day, and it replaced his own daily check-in. When he corrects something, the correction goes into a shared notes file that every agent reads, so he only has to say it once.
Built a 'Piggy Bank' agent that scans Messenger, Instagram, email, and card
Magan (someone, 140K followers, 'Building in Public') created a custom AI agent called 'Piggy Bank' connected to Messenger, Instagram, email, and credit-card transactions. It scans sources to find all subscriptions (which she can cancel), reads Instagram DM chat history to track brand-deal payments, and generates a ledger showing how much she's owed, plus spending insights and payment reminders.
His AI checks WordPress plugins daily and found malware
He set up an AI for his WP Beacon project to check WordPress plugins every day. After two weeks of daily checks it pinged him about malware in the InstaWP Connect plugin, and wordpress.org closed the listing that afternoon and restored it the next morning.
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.