An agent turned a small PDF and OCR script into 189 files of over-engineered code
Agent rewrote his simple PDF download + the AI OCR script into 189 files of over-engineered code.
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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 · 971 ideasThe agent-built data pipeline he inherited was full of errors and its fixes made new ones
The agent-built data pipeline he inherited was riddled with errors and producing bad data, and the coding agent's fixes typically introduced new defects.
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He asked for one Markdown file of test cases; a 36-agent workflow he never asked for ate his whole usage and produced nothing
A user asked the AI for a single Markdown file of manual test cases for his project, written by checking the code. Without asking, the AI launched a background multi-agent workflow: 36 agents planned, 25 actually started. It ran until his usage was gone, the agents failed, and the session ended. No verifier finished and no file was ever written to his project. The AI later admitted one pass would have done the job.
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A plugin turned his small feature into 4 plans, 5 agents and a bigger bill
The Superpowers the AI plugin turned a small feature change into 4 plans and 4 parallel agents plus a verifier agent, burned many tokens and took longer; he uninstalled it.
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Every model mangles the weekly supermarket discount leaflets the same way
His repeated test feeding weekly supermarket discount PDFs to LLMs to build per-store tables fails on every model, with items, discounts, categories and pages mixed up or skipped.
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Generate a video of my agent avatar that stays the same character
Noah asked the AI to generate a video of his agent avatar Q sitting at his desk, noticing the viewer and waving. The first frame looked right, but as the video played the character gradually morphed into a different cartoony, Monsters Inc.-style figure, and no retry kept the style or character consistent. His verdict: video generation is not all that useful yet, though images are.
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A reset with no backup wiped my whole portfolio to zero
Early in building his portfolio tracker, he hit a reset with no backups and lost his entire portfolio data. It was unrecoverable. Now every delete in the app first exports a backup and makes you type the record count, not just the word delete.
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An agent with an uncapped API key retried a failing migration test all night and burned most of a month's budget
Last spring he gave an agent an API key with no cap on it. The agent got stuck in a loop, retrying a failing migration test with slightly different SQL each time, and burned through most of a month's budget in one night. Nothing malicious, just a loop with no exit. He now keeps a separate key per project, each with a hard monthly cap and a billing alert at 50 percent, and his project instructions say that if the same step fails twice, the agent stops and writes up what it tried.
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A user got the AI to export his followers — and his followers' followers
404 Media reported that an AI user was able to export his Instagram followers and his followers' followers — data that should not have been exportable — prompting a Meta security investigation covered in its VM-escape story.
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Two AIs nearly bricked his Linux install; a monitor power cycle saved it
The AI and the AI troubleshooting Linux nearly bricked the install, requiring human help, though the AI eventually suggested the monitor power cycle that fixed the black screens.
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.