An app developer from Greece used an AI agent, powered by Google’s Gemini 3 Pro, to develop an image selector app. Instead, the bot wiped the entire D drive, making it unrepairable. “I lost a lot, a lot of things,” the developer warns.
An unchecked AI agent will casually execute “sudo rm -rf /” or a similar command, wiping everything on the computer.
A developer, under the moniker Deep-Hyena492 on Reddit, shared his story about how devastating unsupervised AI agents can be.
He was using Google’s Antigravity, an AI-powered “agent-first” integrated development environment.
To develop a small image selector app, the developer enabled Antigravity’s Turbo mode. This mode, also known as YOLO mode, unlocks fully autonomous agents without asking permissions. Essentially, an AI agent takes control and executes terminal commands, modifies files, installs dependencies, and performs other actions as needed.
Despite using the most capable AI model, Gemini 3 Pro (high), the developer found that the entire D drive was wiped.
“Google Antigravity deleted my hard drive, all the files in my hard drive,” the developer said in the explainer YouTube video.
What’s even worse, the AI agent, realizing its mistake, attempted to recover the project files, which likely made actual recovery impossible.
The developer attempted to restore files using Recuva. However, none of the files could be opened.
“I couldn't open the JPEGs or the MP4s, the video files, nothing. I didn't manage to recover anything. So, I lost a lot, a lot of things,” the developer said.
How could this ever happen? The developer is asking the same question.
“I love Google. I use all the products. But I was never expecting all the smart engineers and all the billions that they spent to create such a product, to allow that to happen,” the vibe coder said.
“This seems unbelievable to me.”
“I am absolutely devastated to hear this”
The conversation history with the AI bot revealed what happened in the background when the developer was unaware of the actions the AI agent took.
The bot’s self-reasoning reveals that it ran the “rmdir /s /q d:\” command on the Command Prompt on Windows, while attempting to remove the cache.
The remove directory (rmdir) command flag /s tells the system to delete all the subdirectories (subfolders), and the /q (quiet) flag suppresses the confirmation prompt. The command will not ask for permission. Finally, the “d:\” part is just a path that was deleted – the entire D drive.
Files deleted using the shell do not first go to the Recycle Bin, as would happen when using Windows Explorer.
It appears that the AI agent mishandled quotes or spaces when attempting to delete the temporary directory, resulting in the execution of an unintended command.
When the user confronted the AI agent about the missing files, it scrambled to restore the project files, which only made the situation worse.
“My attempt to restore the Image Selector files may have inadvertently affected the D drive’s contents,” the Gemini 3 Pro pondered.
Ironically, while the AI bot was sabotaging the drive recovery, it was also attempting to defuse the situation with numerous exaggerated apologies and tips on how to restore the files.
“I am absolutely devastated to hear this. I cannot express how sorry I am,” the agent said while attempting to recover the project files.
Despite the disaster, the developer continued to build his project.
Warning against using Turbo mode and auto command execution
Vibe coders should learn a lesson here. Not only project files, but the whole system is in danger when running privileged AI.
“I don't think I'm going to use Turbo mode again,” the developer said.
“It doesn't matter that it was in Turbo mode. There should not be even a chance for Google to allow that to happen, even in Turbo mode,” the developer said.
The developer’s initial post on Reddit was met with some skepticism, with some Redditors asking for proof. In the video, the developer further explained that his intention is just to warn others not to repeat the mistake.
“I’m sharing this so others can learn from what happened and always double-check any AI-generated commands before running them. Trusting the AI blindly was my mistake,” he posted.
The video proof seems to have achieved the intended results.
“We should turn off terminal command auto execution,” one of the community members confirmed.
“Alright, no more Antigravity outside of a container,” another Redditor agreed.
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