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Went wrong

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

The AI designed his fan controller circuit, board, and software. The boards are ordered and still untested.

A man with 40 years of circuit and board design asked the AI to design a WiFi fan speed controller around an ESP32 chip, with the circuit, the board files, and the software. The first design took about 15 or 20 minutes. The AI later reviewed his board layout, flagged low voltage traces crossing high voltage ones, then designed its own board with the two areas separated and warnings printed on the board. He bought the parts himself. The boards are on their way and have not been powered up yet.

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

Agents read 206 of my AI sessions and found 223 failures

Haiku 5.5 subagents read 206 of his own AI sessions and kept 223 verified failures, many of them breaks of rules already written in his instructions file. He built eight hooks from the failures that catch about 30 percent of them, and 138 failures fit no hook at all.

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

AI booked my hotel 468 miles away, plus one in West Palm Beach

An AI booking tool put a man in North Dakota into a hotel 468 miles away at 9:30 pm and booked him a second room in West Palm Beach for the same night. The same AI had also failed to cancel his Siurex XM.

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

Work my to-do list for two weeks — 7 items done in week one, 0 in week two

Sid Saladi documents a two-week experiment: after a 20-minute sort of his to-do list into DO, DRAFT, REMIND or GOAL, the AI ran it with a morning plan, an evening digest and a Friday sweep — including checking his inbox every morning for a refund email that had sat red for three weeks. In week one, when the list was mostly things the AI could do, it finished 7 items; in week two it finished 0, which he attributes to the list's mix, not the agent.

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

My scale's AI set my weight goal 150 pounds too high

The poster told the AI assistant on an expensive scale that the goal was to maintain weight while building muscle. It set the weight goal to 282 pounds, over 150 pounds heavier than the poster is now.

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

The AI runs my quant research every hour, and one strategy already trades real money

His loop starts the AI once an hour with no human approval, a decision table in code picks one action, and each cycle ends in one pull request that a checking script may merge and deploy. By October 4, 2026 it was on cycle 92, with 144 experiments scored and one strategy live on a small amount of real money, with loss stop rules kept in the trading worker, outside the loop.

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

Ask the AI what in my 1,412 unread emails actually needs me

Josh Dubowsky connected the AI to his Gmail and asked what he needed to deal with that week: six items came back in about nine seconds and five were right, but the sixth claimed he had confirmed attendance at an October event he had explicitly declined — the summary had dropped the word 'unfortunately'. Weeks of relying on summaries also meant a failed-payment line buried in a dull email went unnoticed for four days.

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

Run an overseas store for 72 hours and make $1,000

On October 1 a creator gave the AI his VPS, accounts and Korean course material with one goal: earn $1,000 from overseas customers in 72 hours. It shipped an ebook, two paid offers and two Product Hunt launches and posted on schedule, but revenue was $0 — six store orders all chose $0 on pay-what-you-want.

This one went wrong. See what happened 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.