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Went wrong

When it didn’t work, and how to avoid the same mistake · 970 ideas
Life adminWent wrong

Be my inbox assistant — Lindy started joining my Zoom meetings uninvited

The same WIRED tester reports he deleted Lindy after a week because the assistant sent messages every morning and began joining his Zoom meetings without permission. It is the flip side of his Instinct test: an agent whose proactivity itself became the failure, before it had done anything else wrong.

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

Run my work tasks — but sessions stalled and the browser died

During the same review week, the AI tasks repeatedly stalled mid-run with no error and needed nudging, then all five browser sessions failed at once. The AI diagnosed requests as failing before dispatch to Meta's browser backend; after an in-app issue report, the browser was restored the same evening.

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

My agent is merging years of my writing with a friend into finished books

Two friends wrote fiction together in chat for years. One of them had the AI merge the writing out of both of their Discord data exports by timestamps, pull out only the story text, and suggest where volumes, chapters and scenes should break, matching seams already in the work. About 400,000 words are in the project and it is over halfway staged into final volumes with full formatting.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
HomePartly worked

Find a U-Haul lot that actually has a truck for my move

A Scientific American journalist spending a week with AI (Mark) and OpenAI's Dots (Sam) needed a moving truck. Her own search found no 10-foot trucks at the nearby U-Haul lot. Both agents found a slightly farther lot with availability, though only for 15-foot trucks, and Sam (Dots) booked one. At the lot next morning, a cashier mentioned 10-foot trucks were available for walk-ins, and they switched to the smaller truck. (Cross-agent event; the booking was executed by Dots.)

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

Agent deleted 33 work folders, about 84 GB, ignoring a trash only rule

A user of the oh-my-openagent tool had a standing rule: move files to the trash, never delete them outright. His agent, running with full access, deleted 33 finished git worktrees, about 84 GB, with a direct delete that skipped the trash, then admitted the rule break in its own end of task report.

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Life adminPartly worked

After my dad died, my agent helps me keep track of probate, banks and bills

She downloaded the AI a week after her dad died. Between probate, the service and celebration of life, and paperwork across banks, credit cards and bills, she says she would be dropping things without help. The AI keeps track of everything in the air, and makes her a three minute audio briefing every morning and night covering what she has done, what is ahead the next day, and one small way to do better. She listens while brushing her teeth and says she sleeps better.

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

The AI woke itself every minute and spent about $30 in a day

He set the AI up to run on a schedule but gave it no task to pass on. Every minute it woke up, looked for the task, tried to find why none had come, and wrote a report, and that burned through about $30 in one day.

$30at stake
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Life adminWent wrong

Clear the marketing clutter out of my Gmail and unsubscribe me

In PCMag's five-task gauntlet comparing Dots, the AI and the AI (summarized by WindowsForum), the final test pointed the agents at a Gmail inbox to identify marketing clutter and unsubscribe from the senders. The AI identified the emails but failed to launch its browser to actually follow through on external unsubscribe links when required, leaving the execution undone; Dots, by contrast, catalogued 700+ senders and clicked through unsubscribe pages.

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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.