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Frustration with AI Agent's Deteriorating Performance Despite Clear Instructions

By

asaaki

1mo ago· 23 min readenOpinion

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 pulled
I 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.
Snippet from the RSS feed
I spent this past weekend angry at an AI agent.

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