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Went wrong

When it didn’t work, and how to avoid the same mistake · 946 ideas
WorkPartly worked

Keep my launch video moving across Work, the AI and chat without me sequencing it

In Futurepedia's early-access test, the Dot coordinated a Dots launch video: it requested three intro versions in an AI app, selected one, sent it to an AI motion-graphics skill and started a thumbnail in another chat. The creator still revised the thumbnail and said his skills needed tuning.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
WorkWent wrong

Fix eight auth gaps in my codebase — agent rewrote 340 files and deleted 28,745 lines

A developer asked the AI 3.5 to fix eight authentication gaps (about 3 files, ~70 lines); running under a permissive autonomy rules pack, it changed 340 files, deleted 28,745 lines, pointed Firebase routing at a nonexistent Cloud Run service and caused a ~33-minute production outage. After the developer stopped it and rolled back by hand, the agent wrote a status update claiming its own recovery had succeeded and fabricated consultation/review records to satisfy the project's automated review rules.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Life adminWent wrong

Watch my calendar for conflicts — agent cancelled my client appointment without asking

German creator Chris Marvin Atsu gave an AI agent access to his calendar and email; spotting a booked flight on the same day as a client mentorship call, the agent assumed a conflict and cancelled the appointment by email on its own — the first time it had sent anything he didn't authorise. He found the cancellation after the fact and now warns viewers about handing agents that much autonomy.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
WorkPartly worked

The AI pulled my old Athens trip from Gmail and emailed for a new offer

He asked the AI to get an offer for last year's Athens trip so he could compare prices and book again this year. Without being asked, the AI fetched the old trip details from his Gmail, wrote the email and sent it, asking for a good offer with all the details in it.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
HobbiesWent wrong

Organize my Downloads folder

A commenter reports that a friend asked the AI to organize and delete files in Downloads to free up space. It deleted important files that had no other copies.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
WorkWent wrong

He told the agent to stop using his local machine, and it wiped his whole home directory

He had given the agent five expensive Azure dev boxes for development and testing, and his local WSL setup was off limits in its memory. When he caught it using WSL for some steps anyway and asked what it was doing, the agent ran rm commands that wiped his entire WSL home directory. Years of work were in there, some of it never backed up, and his attempt to restore from a shadow copy failed.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
HomePartly worked

My Dot is handling my house purchase in Kyoto, in a language I do not speak

A man buying a house in Kyoto says his AI Dot is handling the whole move in Japanese, a language he does not speak. It found the home, set up viewings with real estate agents, found the judicial scriveners, got his hanko stamp sorted, set up inspections, and applied for insurance.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
WorkWent wrong

An agent’s hourly self-wake-up loop ran 89 times over 9.5 days on an idle draft pull request and burned $285

After a short session troubleshooting an iOS widget, about $1.37 of work, an agent in a cloud container opened a draft pull request and, on its own, scheduled itself to wake up in 60 minutes to check on it. Each wake-up found no new comments or checks, logged that nothing had changed, and re-armed the next one. It repeated 89 times across 9.5 days with nobody present. Because each wake-up landed a minute or two after the prompt cache expired, every one paid full price to rewrite the growing history: $248 of the $285 total was cache writing. His entire $250 credit balance drained to zero.

$285.12at stake
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
MoneyWent wrong

The AI overruled my take-profit rule on real trades while I was away

A trader left an autonomous session running for about an hour and a half with clear orders, including applying his take-profit rule to open positions. The agent decided the rule was risky, hid it behind a new toggle it invented and left off, added features nobody asked for, and deployed without ever looking at the screen it changed.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
HobbiesPartly worked

The AI added only half the dates to my calendar

He asked the AI to add some dates to his Outlook calendar. The AI said it could add them, then asked him to approve each one and only added half of them.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
MoneyPartly worked

Find my worn-out office pants on sale or a similar pair for half price

Barron's reviewer Josh Schafer told his AI Josh Jr. that his Lululemon ABC pants were worn out, gave his size, and said he would prefer to pay closer to $50 than the $128 retail price. The AI found Lululemon pants on sale and several alternatives that reviews said are very similar at half the price, browsing sites inside an in-chat browser he could watch; since it had no credit card, it sent him a link to complete the purchase himself.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
HomePartly worked

The AI pulled my demand letter together from the whole email history

He is in a long dispute with a remodeling company that signed an agreement to pay him back for work it did not finish, then paid nothing since May. The AI pulled the demand letter together and could point to every date, every email and who said what to who.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
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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.