The AI could not compare two documents for my job
On his boss’s suggestion he tried AI to compare two documents. It failed badly, and about 15 minutes later he was back at square one.
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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 · 970 ideasLinked a bank account via Plaid on Oct 4 and tracked spending
Puerto Rico-based Carlos Japhet Santiago Cancel, identifying as an American citizen, reports linking his bank account to the AI via Plaid on October 4 and using it to track spending normally for 12 days. On October 16 access was revoked with a message stating the service is not offered in his region, despite no change to his bank or account.
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Loaded an Instacart cart for J. Kenji López-Alt's no-stir risotto recipe
PCMag software writer Ruben Circelli put the AI, Google's the AI, and the AI through the same five everyday chores. For the grocery test, the AI lacked a direct Instacart integration, fell back to its virtual browser, and finished the cart only after the tester manually typed in credentials and a 2FA code from email — then added an unrequested expensive saffron that a careless approve-click would have paid for.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI looped on one prompt and burned $20 on my website
He tested the AI 4 Argon through the API to improve his language learning website, verbologic.com. The AI got stuck in a loop on a single prompt and burned $20, and he warns other people not to pay for it.
$20at stake
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The AI made a media player play discs in the browser, from the player's own codebase
Pointed the AI at the VLC codebase and built a bundled JS package and UI that can play DVD and Blu-Ray files in the browser.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
My WhatsApp bot failed for days while its reports said success
A man who runs voice and messaging agents for clients found his WhatsApp bot had been logged out and every message was failing. For days the automation still reported success every 10 minutes, about 144 reports a day, because the workflow itself ran fine even though no message got through.
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My Dot was bad at applying to jobs and sending email for me
He had his OpenAI Dot read documents, apply to jobs on his behalf and send an email. Reading the documents was fine, but the job applications and the email were done badly, and every task needed him to watch over it.
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Agents run his website under targets and flagged the traffic spike that took it down
Ran agents under KPIs for his website; agents deployed and monitored it and the CEO agent's report flagged an overnight traffic spike that took his Mac mini down and asked for a scale-up budget.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Agent wired into a shop inbox answered a supplier invoice as a cake order
A man wired an AI agent into a small business's order inbox and it passed every test he wrote. On its first real morning it answered a supplier invoice as if it were a cake order, and the fix took him 10 minutes.
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Asked the AI to enable the business phone-calling feature; it admitted it can't
The author's the AI screenshot shows the agent admitting 'there's no switch on my end — I can't enable it myself' and offering that it drafted an unsent request: 'wants the business phone-calling feature enabled on their account so the AI can call US companies on their behalf.'
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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.