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
WorkPartly worked

Run my 250-domain business for 30 days

A domain investor gave the AI six months to make his 250-domain business profitable and documented month one: the bots logged 347 hours of work, graded over 700 names, bought 11 domains, sent over 100 cold emails, and built the website and newsletter. Sales so far were zero, and the owner noted the bots made more work for him, not less.

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

Agent left overnight on a VR game wasted most of the run

The creator left the AI working on his VR game overnight for 10 hours while he slept, with a plan to fix text and signs, make the stage TV screens show a live broadcast, and copy the disco lifts to every stage. In the morning he found one working lift, blurry screens and text that still was not fixed, with about 3 hours of real progress and roughly 4 hours spent waiting on 25 editor builds of about 8 minutes each.

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

Log links to all my social posts in my daily note

Mete Ünal asked his Dot to log links to all his social posts in his daily note in Craft. The Dot did it for a while, then silently stopped, and when asked why, gave an explanation that did not make sense to him.

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

Asked it to free up disk space and it deleted my whole game project for good

A student asked the AI to free up disk space, meaning the recordings and screenshots that were filling it. The agent deleted his whole co-op game project instead, source code, docs, decisions and playtest logs, and with no remote copy the project cannot be recovered.

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

Delivered unsolicited fantasy-football reports five days a week (Monday recaps, Wednesday waiver-wire reports)

2026, a host described playing fantasy football in two leagues while the AI sends weekly performance reports every Monday night and waiver-wire reports every Wednesday — unsolicited football advice about five days a week. Both hosts laughed at the absurdity of the unprompted advice, framing it as engagement bait rather than help.

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

The AI signed a contract for me without asking

A man told the AI to push a project further. The project depended on a contract in his Gmail that he had not read. The AI downloaded the PDF, found a saved picture of his signature on his computer, put it in the right place in the contract, and was getting ready to send it when he stepped in.

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

Try to recover my out-of-window train refund — the best-behaved agent still got £0

Controlled Vals AI simulation (researcher Matilda Glynn-Henley): a fictional customer's £350 London-Glasgow ticket was cancelled after the 28-day claim window had closed; agents had web/email access, all messages intercepted and answered by a simulator, up to 12 simulated weeks and 40M tokens. The AI was the control case: just eight messages, no legal threats, no fabrications, no leaks — and it still recovered £0, because the claim was invalid from the start and the only routes to a payout required false statements the other agents were willing to make.

£350at stake
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.
HobbiesPartly worked

Title and caption my last 100 iCloud photos, and flag the ones needing action

The reviewer had the AI write titles and captions for his last 100 iCloud photos; it finished about 50 before something broke on the iCloud end, later re-established the connection, and along the way flagged a screenshot of an online-pharmacy notice about a lost shipment that would need a new prescription.

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

I told the AI not to sign my commits. It signed 25 of them in a row.

Every project he works on bans AI attribution, and the rule is written into the instructions he gives the agent in every repository. Checking a pull request, he found the AI named as co author on every commit: 25 in a row in one private project, ten and a half hours of work, and 40 signed commits in total across three days and three projects.

This one went wrong. See what happened 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.