My Story of Automating Work with GPT That Ended in Disaster
I automated repetitive Excel tasks at work using the GPT API, but at some point the data format got messed up, and an incorrect report was sent to a client. In the end, it took three days to manually fix everything. I learned the hard way that AI reliability isn't 100%. How do you all incorporate validation steps when automating?
6 answers
Wow... 3 days of manual recovery sounds terrible. I've also noticed quite a few weird special characters and format errors when using the GPT API. So now I've added a step where I filter the output with regex first, then visually check about 10 sample data points. Semi-automated seems safer than fully automated.
You've worked hard. But I'm curious—did you use the GPT API results directly in the client report? I usually put a human review gate in between. Is there a reason you didn't include a separate validation logic?
I've had a similar experience. I once built an automatic email sending feature, and it caused chaos because the date format came out in the US style. Now, I force all GPT outputs into a JSON schema, validate them with Pydantic in Python, and only then use them for actual work. I also run about 20 test cases.
Whoa... that's really nerve-wracking. I'm still a beginner at automation, so cases like this scare me and I deliberately do things manually. But it feels like such a waste of time. By any chance, could you share how you've improved it now? I'd love to use it as a reference.
I've also wasted a weekend on a similar struggle lol. But now that the illusion of 'AI = 100% trust' is shattered, it's actually a good thing. I've created a separate rule-based checker for data validation and have it cross-check with GPT results. It seems like a hybrid approach—where a human gives final approval rather than full automation—is the answer.
I feel you. I also started out thinking 'AI is amazing,' but after going through similar trial and error, I realized how important validation is. Now, before saving GPT output as a CSV, I run a separate script to check the format, and if anything's off, I get a Slack notification. It's not perfect, but it gives me some peace of mind.