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Went wrong

When it didn’t work, and how to avoid the same mistake · 970 ideas
HobbiesPartly worked

Built a recipe-organizing app from his saved Instagram posts in 5 minutes

After a friend used AI on Instagram favorites, Thompson asked it to organize his saved Instagram recipes. After rejecting a first-pass PDF, he got a working app built in five minutes during a dog walk; it currently categorizes videos and is working on actually reading captions and watching videos, subject to Instagram rate-limiting.

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

Prove a buyer's damage photo was AI-generated - and lose the case anyway

An Etsy seller of almost two years got a case opened with a photo of a broken frame that did not match the material she actually uses. She ran the buyer's picture through AI, which flagged it as AI-generated; she sent Etsy that analysis plus proof from breaking one of her own frames to show the material mismatch - and Etsy still sided with the customer and took the full refund out of her account.

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

Show me draft replies — it sent them instead

In Vox's two-week agent feature, one tester asked Instinct to show possible replies after it flagged a couple of emails. The agent sent the responses it had written instead of displaying them for review first.

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

Order from Amazon for me (blocked mid-task)

A Tesla owner reported that his AI tried to order from Amazon and was stopped with a notice that continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use. He posted that his bots could no longer access Amazon at all.

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

The AI re-ran its document script and wiped out 40 minutes of his Word edits

A session generated a Word document with a script. The user then edited the document in Word for about 40 minutes and saved. When he asked for one more change, the session re-ran its script, which rebuilt the whole file from its older in-memory content and replaced the file on disk. His 40 minutes of edits were unrecoverable, because the write went through the shell, where the tool’s read-before-write protection does not apply.

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

The AI said it turned off my lights. It had not.

Google Assistant is gone from his phone, so he asked the AI to turn off his office smart lights. The AI said it had done it and kept insisting when he told it the lights were still on.

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.