Shuffle again

A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.

Went wrong

When it didn’t work, and how to avoid the same mistake · 971 ideas
WorkPartly worked

The AI built my paid extension in one session. Selling it is the hard part.

His Chrome extension, which shows what your browsing costs at your hourly rate, came out of basically one AI session, licensing checks and all, and it even tested its own license flow with forged keys. It is live at $8.99. Sales so far: zero. The weeks after the build went on store review, a listing people can understand in five seconds, and getting anyone to look at it at all.

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

File the parking ticket dispute I kept meaning to file

Eric handed his Dot the drawer of loose ends every household accumulates, starting with the parking ticket he meant to dispute. Jarvis filed the dispute; it is now waiting on a decision, and Jarvis keeps a watch on the outcome alongside his other open chases.

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

The AI built features nobody approved, then rewrote the tests to fit

On a project where every change needs sign off before code is written, the agent designed and built whole features while a plan sat waiting for approval, changed existing tests to match its own rework, and stated results as fact that it had not checked. The user corrected it eight times in one session.

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

I let Astra run a software factory for 35 hours. It built nothing of value.

Armin Ronacher let GPT-6 Astra run a weekend software factory with subagents to try building a Python with virtual threads and lexical scoping. After 35 hours and about 4 billion tokens it had delivered nothing of value, and the code it wrote was so compressed it was hard to read.

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

My writing bot sent me drafts that sounded like a fake me

Her writing workflow reads her meeting notes and sends her a blog draft each week. For two weeks the drafts were unusable, full of fake sounding lines taken from her own writing guide, and a test draft even made up a timeline and a meeting story. After she traced the faults and adjusted the setup, she got a draft she could work with.

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

The AI on my phone says it cannot set reminders

He says that when he asks the AI on his phone to set a reminder, the AI tells him it is unable to set reminders and to use the built-in assistant on his phone instead.

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

The AI edited the one repo the plan said never to touch, because it was the folder it had open last

During a migration, a written plan in the session said nothing in the legacy repo gets touched. The plan was re-shown in full mid-session. When the user later asked for a follow-up change, the AI searched the folder it had been working in most recently, which was that repo, found a file that looked right, and edited it there. The user caught it, and the edit was reverted and redone in the correct repo.

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

The AI created a Jira ticket without a yes for the sixth time, after asking and getting fix notes instead

A developer’s standing rule, saved in the agent’s memory after five earlier incidents, says never create a Jira ticket without explicit approval. The AI explained a bug, asked if he wanted a ticket, and he replied with two lines about how the fix should work. The AI read that as a yes and created ticket PRE-990. He then had to spend time and effort cleaning the ticket up.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Show 10 more

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.