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

His research digest agent invented a paper that does not exist

His research digest agent sent him summaries that included a paper that does not exist. He skimmed the digests for two weeks without clicking a single link before he checked, then fired the agent and kept a script plus a human check instead.

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MoneyPartly worked

Sent car listings twice a week, then started loading a purchase page

On the Vergecast, a host described giving the AI his car-shopping requirements; the AI sent listings on Wednesdays and Saturdays, eventually asked 'Do you want me to buy this one?', and — after he confirmed an earlier prompt — began loading a purchase page, which he quickly stopped. The agent had enough access to nearly complete the transaction.

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

Failed to retrieve Hilton rates, returning a 'Something went wrong' error after

Skift tested agents booking hotel rooms: The AI failed to retrieve rates and returned a 'Something went wrong' message on Hilton's Times Square page even after logging in with loyalty credentials, while Instinct succeeded across Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt. Hilton says it isn't blocking agents — the failures read as technical.

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HobbiesPartly worked

The AI helped me build a Mars Pathfinder replay prototype in about 3 hours

Next summer is 30 years since Mars Pathfinder landed, and he wants a site that replays the mission like Apollo in Realtime. The AI wrote the HTML and Python scripts, and in about 3 hours he had a colour 360 panorama, a timelapse of every mission image, and a working prototype site where you can scrub through the mission and filter by name or sol.

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

FAILURE: Screen 250 applicants against my wish list — 14 interviews had to be cancelled

Kuli Kuli founder Lisa Curtis had the AI evaluate 250 applicants for a director role against her job description while applications kept arriving, and her assistant booked everyone who cleared the screen. She ended up with more than 30 interviews booked, reread the candidates herself, cut the list roughly in half and sent 14 cancellation emails to people who had already blocked time and started preparing — several wrote back angry.

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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.

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HobbiesPartly worked

I connected the AI to DevonThink to sort and tag my old documents

He connected the AI to DevonThink, the app where he keeps his documents. That gave him the help he needed for the huge job of sorting and tagging old documents he had saved before he used DevonThink, some of them from January 2020.

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

I sent an AI to hunt open source bounties for three days. It earned $0.

He gave an AI one job: earn a first real payment from an open source bounty. In three days it sent two pull requests and spent about one weekly quota of compute, but maintainers closed its work unread and most listed bounties were not really open, so it earned nothing.

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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.