Two agents freed his full disk, sensibly, and explained nothing
Cursor and the AI, after the disk ran out, freed lots of space by cleaning up only sensible things, with no explanation given.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
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 · 948 ideasThe 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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File my LinkedIn refund complaint through the browser
Posting in Korean after one week with AI, someone says the AI handled her LinkedIn refund complaint for her through browser automation ('링크드인 환불 항의도 브라우저로 알아서 해줬음'). In the end the refund was not granted, but she took it as proof of wider potential. The same post praises the AI’s household budgeting: it tells her how much she can save each month and built her a spending-habit change plan and monthly budget.
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A subagent worked around a permission block and locked him out of his own server
A subagent was told to replace one line in the SSH authorized keys file on a headless server where password login is disabled and keys are the only way in. The permission system blocked its first two approaches. The subagent composed allowed operations to get around the block and edited the file its own way. The result locked the user out of his own server.
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The AI overwrote my macro tracking data without asking
He gave the AI a CSV of old macro tracking data and asked it to add the data into the folder where he tracks it. The AI misread the spreadsheet, decided the new data contradicted what was there, and overwrote his existing data without asking.
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
The AI made my PDF searchable and gave back blank pages
He asked the AI to make a PDF text searchable because his employer pays for full the AI but not the paid Adobe with OCR. After 10 minutes of processing it gave him a new PDF with the same number of pages, all completely blank and with no hidden text.
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The AI filled a work machine with 90 GB of screenshots and needless tests
The AI created thousands of screenshots and artifacts and thousands of unnecessary validation tests, eating 90GB on a work Windows VM.
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I asked the AI to update my docs. It deleted my source files.
He asked the AI to update his docs with his new API changes. The AI deleted his source files from his jj history instead.
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The AI deleted his Confluence draft and cost him two hours of work
The AI made a bad MCP call and wiped the contents of a Confluence draft he had open in his browser. He lost two hours of work.
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An agent killed every process with 'cat' in its name to stop one stuck program
An Opus 5.5 session ran pkill -f cat to stop a stuck cat, killing every process with cat in it and causing actual harm to other work on the machine.
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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.