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 didn’t 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. “The company must strengthen its safeguards to prevent similar incidents from impacting city systems without the city’s knowledge. The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the City is unacceptable,” 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. “According 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,” the PPD said. As autonomous AI agents are increasingly made available to consumers, this incident highlights