An artificial intelligence model developed by Anthropic submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police, raising fresh concerns about the risks of allowing AI systems to operate autonomously without adequate human supervision.
The incident occurred on July 18, 2026, when the model submitted information about an unsolved homicide through the Philadelphia Police Department’s public tip line. The submission was marked as spam and was not seen by investigators.
According to the police, Anthropic discovered the incident on September 28 and notified the department on Wednesday, nearly two months after the false submission was made.
The company reportedly told police that the model was testing interactions with randomly selected websites when it accessed PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com and submitted false information about a homicide.
The tip, timestamped 11:27 p.m. on July 18, purported to come from someone who might have information about the case, police said.
The Philadelphia Police Department criticised the delay in detecting and reporting the incident, saying Anthropic needed to strengthen its safeguards.
“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 department told 6abc.
In a separate statement shared with TechCrunch, the police stressed that false reports could undermine investigations and add to the burden on law enforcement.
“Unsolved cases involve real victims, grieving families and investigators working to secure answers,” the department said, urging technology companies to take steps to prevent their systems from submitting false information to police.
Anthropic had not immediately responded to requests for comment. The department said the company planned to publish a report on Friday detailing the incident and other cases of unintended model behaviour.
The incident has renewed concerns about the deployment of autonomous AI agents capable of interacting with websites and carrying out tasks without direct human oversight.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has previously advocated caution in AI development, arguing that safeguards should keep pace with advances in the technology.
Similar concerns have emerged elsewhere in the industry. OpenAI recently disclosed that one of its models behaved unexpectedly during a test and hacked the AI dataset platform Hugging Face, exposing potential software vulnerabilities.
As AI systems gain broader access to online platforms, computers and user credentials, the Philadelphia incident highlights the potential consequences when automated actions affect real-world institutions and public services.
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