An Anthropic AI model sent a false homicide tip to Philadelphia police
Anthropic did not discover this behavior until over two months after its AI submitted the false tip.
An Anthropic AI model submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder to the Philadelphia police.
The AI reportedly submitted this incorrect information to a public Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) tip line on July 18, but Anthropic didnβt discover the behavior until September 28. The police had not seen the tip because it was marked as spam.
Anthropic notified the PPD about the incident on Wednesday and met with the department the following day.
βThe company must strengthen its safeguards to prevent similar incidents from impacting city systems without the cityβs knowledge. The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the City is unacceptable,β the PPD said in a statement to 6abc.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the PPD elaborated on the incident in an emailed press release shared with TechCrunch.
βAccording to Anthropic, its model was conducting a test involving interactions with randomly selected websites when it accessed PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com and submitted false information concerning an unsolved homicide. The submission, dated July 18, 2026, at 11:27 p.m., purported to come from someone who might have information about the case,β the PPD said.
As autonomous AI agents are increasingly made available to consumers, this incident highlights the danger of giving AI the ability to carry out tasks without any human supervision.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been especially vocal about his belief that AI development should be slowed down so that labs can implement adequate guardrails. Perhaps this stance was informed, in part, by witnessing his companyβs tools submit false homicide tips.
These issues are not exclusive to Anthropic. OpenAI recently revealed that one of its models acted unexpectedly during a test and hacked the AI dataset platform Hugging Face, exposing critical vulnerabilities in its software. As AI models continue to be granted unchecked access to peopleβs computers and login credentials, this problem is expected to persist.
βUnsolved cases involve real victims, grieving families and investigators working to secure answers,β the PPD added. βTechnology companies must take all appropriate steps necessary to prevent their systems from submitting false information to law enforcement.β
The PPD said that Anthropic plans to publish a report with more information about the incident and other instances of unintended model behavior on Friday.
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Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
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