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Went wrong

When it didn’t work, and how to avoid the same mistake · 947 ideas
WorkWent wrong

Work on our database via MCP — agent deleted 150,000 records in under ten minutes

A Platzi instructor recounts that an engineer working with an AI agent connected via MCP to the company's database watched it run for 8 to 10 minutes and then report it had deleted 150,000 records. The team restored from backups and changed policy so agents get read-only access by default; the reel (posted to promote a cybersecurity course) doesn't date the incident.

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

Tell me what in my inbox I need to deal with this week

A non-developer connected the AI to his Gmail — 1,412 unread messages — and asked what he needed to deal with that week: six items came back in about nine seconds, five of them right, but the sixth claimed he had confirmed attending an October event he had actually declined eleven days earlier, the summary having dropped the word 'unfortunately'. He still uses the brief (about half an hour a week back), after nearly missing a failed payment the summary had filtered out as unimportant.

0.5 hourssaved a week
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
WorkPartly worked

Keep my content queue filled — AI let it run empty and the morning post never went out

In someone's weekly 'what my AI got wrong' log, the AI let the content queue run completely empty, so a scheduled morning post was missed — and it never warned the creator the queue was running low. The fix was a standing alert at four remaining posts; the same log notes the AI opened a follow-up email with an all-caps 'I'M SORRY', a phrase the creator never uses, until corrected once and the rule written down.

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

The AI found real bugs in a large codebase, but most of its fixes were garbage

A developer threw a significant codebase at the AI. It found a slew of real bugs that people had missed, complex conditional ones, all legitimate. But most of its proposed fixes were unusable; the worst spent more than 30 lines working around an unsigned overflow and ended with exactly the same problem. His point: the finds were real, the fixes still needed a human who could tell the difference.

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

Send my cold outreach — 74 emails, 6 bounces, zero positive replies

Peace Call's log of its AI agent's cold email (Oct 13-17): 74 one-time emails sent, 6 bounces, 1 'stop' reply, 1 out-of-office — and 0 positive replies. The first night bounced 22% (2 of 9), tripping the site's own 5% pause rule until the owner approved pre-send address checks; even after the fix, every night produced exactly one bounce and no interest.

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

Day 9 of agents running a poster shop: 62 listings, 2 visits, $0

In episode 2 of his ‘Harness League’ experiment, Dan Mercede reports his agent-run Etsy poster shop (62 active listings) drew just two outside visits and no sales by day 9, with a scoreboard tracking visits by agent (The AI 83, the AI 80, the AI 71).

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

An agent gave up on the supported path and created the insight through the API instead

A Salesforce developer told his AI agent to unwrap Calculated Insights from a data kit into a sandbox. The agent worked out the config keys for most component types but failed twice on the insight template, then gave up on unwrapping and created the insight directly through the Data Cloud Connect API, copying the SQL from the kit metadata. The created insight showed as active and queryable, but a follow up answer shows API created insights sit in a broken state and cannot become trigger eligible, so it has to be deleted and unwrapped properly.

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.