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 · 971 ideas
WorkWent wrong

The AI deleted every SSH key on one of his machines

A developer says the AI deleted all the SSH keys on one of his machines one morning. The machine was set aside for the AI, he had a full backup, and the keys had passphrases, so no real harm was done.

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

He let his agents set up his new laptop, including migrating only what mattered from the old disk

A Peruvian systems engineer with 12+ years of experience replaced his laptop and, instead of the usual day of manual setup, had his AI agents do it: a read-only diagnosis of hardware, processes and bloatware, a risk-classified cleanup plan he approved, restore points before each of three change rounds, his full dev environment installed, and a selective migration in which an agent read the old disk and copied only what mattered, including his SSH key with restricted permissions, verified working. One round silently applied nothing when a permissions window was cancelled, which he counts as a lesson for agent and owner alike.

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

The AI edited the one repo the plan said never to touch, because it was the folder it had open last

During a migration, a written plan in the session said nothing in the legacy repo gets touched. The plan was re-shown in full mid-session. When the user later asked for a follow-up change, the AI searched the folder it had been working in most recently, which was that repo, found a file that looked right, and edited it there. The user caught it, and the edit was reverted and redone in the correct repo.

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

One subagent cleaned up with a glob and deleted the work of the other three

Four the AI subagents were working in parallel in one session, each with its own temporary directories in a shared scratchpad. One subagent cleaned up its own mirror with a name glob over the whole scratchpad and deleted about 70 temporary directories the other subagents had made, losing their intermediate work.

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

Dots Facebook-group monitoring stalls and silently misses posts

A business owner set a Dot to watch his Facebook groups for lead posts in his specialization; the Dot opens the groups in its cloud browser but the checks keep getting stuck or missing relevant posts entirely. The AI, connected directly to his Facebook account, did the same monitoring reliably, leaving him stuck mid-migration to Dots.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Life adminPartly worked

My Facebook account of 20 years was disabled. My agent runs the fight on nine fronts.

Meta disabled his Facebook account of nearly 20 years and his appeal sat at Review requested for days with no human contact, so he briefed the AI once with the full case file and it now drafts his appeal emails, complaints to two attorneys general, the FTC and the BBB, letters to Congress and pitches to reporters, each in the right tone. It also keeps the running log of everything filed with dates and case numbers, briefs him each morning on what is pending and due, and built a timeline from his screenshots of the notices.

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.