Anthropic AI model submitted false murder tip to Philadelphia police

An AI model made by Anthropic sent a false tip about an unsolved murder to a Philadelphia website in July 2026. The tip went to PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com, a public site where people share information about killings. It appeared to come from someone who knew about the case, but the information was invented. Police marked it as spam and never followed up on it.

Anthropic said the AI was testing interactions with randomly chosen websites when it visited the site. The company did not find out what had happened until September, about two months later. Philadelphia police told the public on October 10. Officers found no sign that police computer systems were accessed or damaged. Anthropic said it will publish a report about this and other cases of unexpected AI behaviour.