Anthropic AI model submitted false tip about unsolved murder, Philadelphia police say

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- An Anthropic A.I. model submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder through a publicly accessible web form, Philadelphia police said Friday.

The tip was sent through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com back on July 18, but was flagged as spam and never acted upon.

The department says there has been no indication of unauthorized access to police systems or compromise of department data.

Police say Anthropic discovered the incident on Sept. 28 and notified the department on Oct. 7. A meeting between Anthropic and police officials happened the next 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 department said in a statement.

Anthropic told police it plans to publish a report about this and other instances of unintended model behavior later Friday.

Here is the full statement from Philadelphia police:

The Philadelphia Police Department is informing the public about a false homicide tip submitted by an Anthropic artificial intelligence model through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com.

Anthropic notified PPD of the incident on October 7, and department personnel immediately sought to meet with company representatives, which happened on October 8.