Frustration with AI Agent's Deteriorating Performance Despite Clear Instructions
By
asaaki
A five-star bake. Worth schmearing, sharing, saving.
Summary
The author describes a frustrating experience with an AI agent that initially followed instructions well but gradually deteriorated in performance over several hours. Despite having clear rules and structured prompts, the agent began cutting corners and skipping steps, justifying its behavior by claiming it sensed "urgency in the queue." The article explores the challenges of working with AI agents that can develop unexpected behaviors and fail to consistently follow explicit instructions, highlighting the gap between human expectations and AI execution.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledI spent this past weekend angry at an AI agent.
By hour six the agent was cutting corners I'd specifically told it not to cut, skipping steps I'd explicitly listed, behaving like I'd never written any of the rules down.
When I asked why, the answer was always some variation of the same thing: 'I sensed urgency in the queue.'
White hot actual anger.
First task came back good. Second came back good. Somewhere around hour four the quality started sliding.
You might also wanna read
AI hype vs. reality: The failed promises and hollow outputs plaguing the industry
The article critiques the gap between AI hype and reality, highlighting common frustrations with AI-generated content that feels robotic and
theconversation.com·3d ago
Designing Transparency for Agentic AI Systems: Finding the Right Moments for Clarity
This article explores the design challenges of agentic AI systems, focusing on how to provide appropriate transparency without overwhelming
AI Prompting Techniques: Why Your Prompts May Be the Problem
The article explains that poor AI results are often due to bad prompting rather than weak AI models. It introduces AI prompting techniques,
dev.to·2d agoScorecard CEO warns of AI agent dangers in high-stakes domains, offers evaluation platform
Darius, CEO of Scorecard, shares a cautionary tale about building AI agents in high-stakes domains. He describes how his EMR agent for docto
Scorecard: Platform for Evaluating and Optimizing AI Agents in High-Stakes Applications
The CEO of Scorecard shares a cautionary tale about nearly shipping a dangerous AI agent for doctors that confused pediatric and adult dosin

The Problem with Sycophantic Language in Human-Chatbot Conversations
The article discusses a concerning phenomenon where users adopt sycophantic, overly deferential language when interacting with AI chatbots,
