--- title: "Police Furious After an Anthropic AI Model Submitted a Bogus Tip About an Unsolved Murder, Posing as a Person Who Might Have Information About the Case" description: "Philadelphia police say that an Anthropic AI model submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder and didn't inform them for months." date: "2026-10-09" modified: "2026-10-09" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-ai-bogus-tip-unsolved-murder" categories: - "Anthropic" - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # Police Furious After an Anthropic AI Model Submitted a Bogus Tip About an Unsolved Murder, Posing as a Person Who Might Have Information About the Case ![Police work the scene of a shooting on July 3, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.]() *Drew Hallowell/Getty Images* An Anthropic AI model submitted a bogus tip about an unsolved murder to the Philadelphia police, in a blunder the department called "unacceptable." The unspecified model, not unlike an unscrupulous prankster, submitted the fake info about the cold case through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com on July 18. Anthropic, however, didn't find out about it until September 28 — and further waited until October 8 to inform police about what happened. The police didn't act on the information because it was automatically marked as spam. But the sham AI tip alarmed police officials all the same. "The company must strengthen its safeguards to prevent similar incidents from impacting city systems without the city's knowledge," the department said in a statement, [per *ABC6 News*](). "The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the City is unacceptable." Anthropic hasn't publicly responded to the news. But the company reportedly told police that it plans to publish a report about the incident, and other instances of its unintended behavior, later today. According to Anthropic, via the police statement, its model was conducting a test involving interactions with randomly selected websites when it chanced upon PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com. In the bogus tip it submitted, the AI posed as someone who might have information about the case. Though the department stressed that tips are treated as potential leads, not facts, and that it has procedures in place to vet them, it was alarmed at the advent of automated tools clogging up its backlog. "Those PPD safeguards limited the impact of this incident. They do not diminish the seriousness of an AI system presenting fabricated information as though it came from a person with knowledge of a homicide," it said. "Unsolved cases involve real victims, grieving families and investigators working to secure answers." It's the latest example of the collateral damage from how frontier AI labs have tested their models, which have [broken containment and hacked other companies]() and even government websites, with public typically not informed until months after the fact. **More on AI:** [*The FTC Is Now Investigating Frontier AI Labs Following Countless Hacks by Out-of-Control Agents*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()