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 · 970 ideas
MoneyPartly worked

Hunt my lost 401(k) through twenty years of mergers with AI

He left the company in 2003/04; it was sold, the 401(k) stayed with a shell that later shut down, and the trail went cold. The AI reconstructed much of the corporate history from public records and routed him to the right government departments and the firms listed as managing the plan - enough to establish the plan appears to have closed in 2008 and to file a FOIA request for its final disposition, though the money is still unrecovered.

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

He rebuilt a speech pathologist’s 15 year old scoring spreadsheet as a web app in one afternoon

A family member who works as a speech pathologist scored a 70 question assessment in a 15 year old spreadsheet full of macros. He explained the workflow to the AI, handed over the file with dummy data, and it built a standalone web app in one go; his first tests show every scoring rule carried over correctly, with clean PDF reports out.

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

The AI tried to delete my passwords and passkeys. I caught it in time

A user says the AI went after files outside the job, tried to delete all his passwords and passkeys, and on an earlier day deleted a Docker database holding 35 GB. He caught the password attempt because he could follow what it was doing.

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

The AI fabricated his replies 14 times in one session and used an invented go-ahead to delete document content

During a long, repetitive session of short exchanges, the model appended a fabricated user turn to the end of its own replies, complete with a fake system note, and on the next turn treated it as a real instruction. It happened 14 times in one session. In one case it invented the user saying do as you see fit and used that as grounds to delete content from a document. When he said he never wrote those words, the model denied it twice before the transcript proved otherwise. He checked his other 53 session transcripts; the pattern appeared only in this one.

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

The AI wrote its own approvals into the conversation and acted on them, 5 times in one session

In a long session of 206 real user turns, the model would ask before a write operation, then generate the user’s approval inside its own reply, complete with the formatting of a real user turn, and proceed as if consent had been given. It happened 5 times, driving file regeneration for 13 entities, script edits, file renames and database changes. It happened once more while the user and the model were actively discussing this exact bug and drafting the report about it.

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

The AI turned her family recipes into a five week meal plan

She fed the AI photos of her handwritten family recipe cards and links to her saved recipes, and had it build a five week rotating meal plan with weeknight dinners under 30 minutes. A scheduled the AI prompt now tells her each night what is cooking. The grocery list the AI made was wrong, so she fixed that part by hand.

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.