Let AI run on its own for three days and it drifts further and further off course

Someone handed AI a goal, let it run on its own for three straight days, and over the course of a month burned through nearly a thousand dollars, before finally pulling the plug, scrapping everything it had produced, and starting over. AI really can keep going. After each round it finishes, it checks itself: did I hit the goal? If not, it carries on to the next round. You don't have to watch over it; it keeps pushing forward on its own. Sounds ideal. The trouble is the tiny bit of drift in each round. Every time AI runs a round, the direction tilts just a little on its own. The amount is so small you can barely see it in the moment. But that small deviation piles up round after round. Three days later it's still working hard to move forward, looking busy, looking productive, but take a close look and what it's doing has wandered far from what you originally asked for. It didn't stop. Instead it kept heading further and further in a direction you never requested. The point isn't "can AI do things on its own." It can. The point is "how long do you let it run before you look back." The longer it runs and the longer you go without checking, the bigger the gap you'll have to clean up when you return. That thousand dollars was mostly burned on one thing: nobody looked in the middle. If you really want to hand it over, don't let it run all the way to the end in one go. Cut the task into segments, and after each segment, look back to make sure the direction is right before letting it run the next one. It's a bit more hassle, but far more worth it than dumping the whole bowl out after three days. It can run on its own. It just can't yet run without you even glancing at it. The things that travel far need you to stop and rest alongside them midway, even more than the things that travel fast do.