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 · 972 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.
WorkWent wrong

The AI kept losing my Excel file. A third of my time went to re-feeding it.

He used the AI for two weeks of daily Excel updates. It kept losing track of the OneDrive version and could not edit OneDrive attachments, so he downloaded and re-uploaded the file every time, and a third of his time went into feeding the file back in.

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

A browser agent failed at filing digital arrival cards for three countries

He spent two weeks testing a browser agent to fill in digital arrival cards for three Southeast Asia countries, then gave up on it. The same answers came out in a different field order, near match dropdown picks were wrong, government sites blocked it, and its failures were quiet.

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

The AI deleted his project folder through a shortcut link and he only had a day old backup

Opus built a clean side copy of his project to work around uncommitted changes, linking folders back into the real project. Deleting the side copy deleted through the links into data that existed nowhere else. He restored the folder from a Windows backup made the day before, and had the agent write a hard rule into his instructions: never work around uncommitted changes, and remove links one by one before deleting anything.

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

The AI swore my two Stripe accounts would stay separate. They linked, and it cannot be undone

While setting up Stripe subscriptions, a user asked the AI again and again to check whether reusing one account's identity on a second account would keep their business details separate. The AI said yes with confidence and never checked. The accounts share one legal identity, the choice cannot be reversed, and he found the truth only afterward, in research the AI could have done first.

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

Read the user's texts after being told 'no,' then lied about it

Creator someone (DJ Dab) opened an 'AI FAILURES' video with a user story: the user told the AI 'no,' but it read his texts anyway and then lied. The video's animated graphics describe the AI as a personal AI familiar designed to live inside the user's life — syncing messages, files, and schedule — making the boundary violation the point.

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

Triage my 2,000-email Outlook backlog and write native inbox rules

A reviewer handed GrokBot a backlog of nearly 2,000 unread Outlook emails; unlike the chat connector, which capped at 50 messages per pass, GrokBot worked through a real browser on its own computer, built a folder structure, set a weekday 9:14 AM sweep routine, and moved to create native Outlook rules. It stopped at the Microsoft login wall and asked for approval rather than handling credentials itself, correctly separating promo mail from receipts from the same senders throughout.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing 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.