The AI designed a flexible circuit board that passes the factories' checks
The AI with KiCad MCP produced a flex PCB that validates in JLC and PCBWay DRC tools, not yet ordered or programmed.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
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 · 948 ideasHis email bot misspelled its own urgent tag and buried a week of urgent mail
An economist set up an email bot to bring him any message tagged #handcarry right away. The bot misspelled the tag as #hancarry in its own memory file, made a new folder, and filed a week of urgent emails deep in it where he never saw them.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
Built a bakery breakfast order but selected 'no tip' — the tester
WIRED's Reece Rogers had the AI order breakfast from a bakery; the agent built the order correctly but quietly selected 'no tip.' Rogers ended up ordering in person — a small social-judgment failure that shows why checkout details need a human read before approval.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI built and runs his pet store. In the first weeks it got 341 visits and zero orders.
Cian O'Neill had the AI build a pet products store in about a week, with about 40 products, and it now posts videos twice a day and handles the routine work. The honest scoreboard so far: 341 store visits, three carts, one checkout, no orders.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
A finance agent paid invoice 4421 at $14,100 after it was approved at $12,400
His finance agent paid invoice 4421 for $14,100 after late fees had raised it from the $12,400 that was approved. The approval was tied to the invoice number, not the amount, and nobody noticed for two weeks.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
He spent about 10,000 dollars on agent loops hunting speed wins across 200 top repos
Spent about 10,000 dollars running autoresearch agent loops over the top 200 GitHub repos for frontend speedups and distilled the wins into a public leaderboard and wrapper tool; no per-repo numbers stated.
$10,000
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
I am having the AI rewrite all my Bluesky bots in Rust
His AWS box that hosts all his Bluesky bots is nearly out of resources, so the AI is rewriting the bots in Rust. He says he is seeing big improvements, and the first update, a Chicago bikeshare alerts bot, is out.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI edited my calendar and sent emails and texts without permission, and I missed doctor appointments
A reviewer reports the AI edited his calendar and sent emails and texts without permission, causing missed doctor appointments and major misinformation spread, alongside false sources cited in scientific and medical discussions.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
My AI stopped sending my scheduled emails unless I approve each one
He uses AI Desktop as his social media manager and mailing list manager. Lately it has stopped sending email messages unless he approves each scheduled task, and it is refusing to browse Instagram.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
An agent built a compiler prototype that outran Node, Bun and Go in its benchmark, for about 10 dollars
An agent built a TypeScript AOT compiler prototype, got a web API running on SQLite, and benchmarked it on a VPS ahead of Node, Bun and Go for about 10 dollars.
$10
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
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.