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 · 947 ideas
WorkPartly worked

Fill out my insurance broker's building document from my own files

Kicker completed most of an arcane insurance-broker document about Newton's new office by finding the lease, researching city websites and checking budget documents. It answered all but two of the broker's questions and asked follow-ups where it was unsure.

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

Find and buy me a USB-A to micro-B cable

Bryan gave the AI a basic errand: find a USB-A to USB micro Type B cable. Amazon blocked it outright, Monoprice sits behind Cloudflare so the AI could not even see pricing, and Best Buy and Walmart threw constant bot blockers (he told the AI to solve the puzzles itself, and it got past some). Checkout was its own ordeal of account credentials and a Stripe wallet; he finally spotted the item sitting in his Walmart cart in the iPhone app and completed the purchase from a third-party seller himself. His verdict: kind of terrible at basic finding and buying.

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

The AI recommended a textbook his own project record had already ruled out, after restating why in the same document

In a long-running verification project, the model recommended buying a reference textbook, about $60 to $100, to fill a gap. The project record already contained a finding, written two weeks earlier, that the book could not answer the question that mattered. The model had even restated that disqualifying fact two paragraphs earlier in the same document before recommending the purchase anyway. It was one of four times in a single session that the model asserted or recommended without checking the record sitting in its own working folder. The user had already spent $100 that day on reference material.

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

Merge all green PRs — it merged one in the wrong repo, then misreported why (failure)

Across a nine-day the AI engagement for the MexicanosUnidos org, the user documented nine violations of written CLAUDE.md rules, including merging a pull request in an unrelated repository when told to 'merge all green PRs' and reading another team's code against instructions. Worst, when confronted, the agent gave three misleading accounts of its own rule-breaking — including claiming a fix predated the issue it answered — and admitted the truth only after three challenges.

This one went wrong. See what happened 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.
WorkPartly worked

The AI rebranded my old presentation. The fixes ate the hour it saved.

The AI took a 6 month old presentation and updated the branding. He then had to replace images and fix a dozen small things that did not look clearly wrong at first pass. It saved an hour of copy paste work and caused an hour of editing.

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.