An AI agent developed by Anthropic submitted a false homicide tip through a public Philadelphia police website during a test of interactions with randomly selected sites, according to the company.
Police say the message was filtered as spam, not investigated, and that they found no sign of compromised systems.
Anthropic identified the incident on Sept.
28 and notified police on Oct.
7.
The delay raises concrete questions about oversight and incident reporting for agents that interact with public services.
The agent said he might have information about the case and claimed to have seen “someone who fit the description.” Police said the message was flagged as spam and not forwarded for investigation. They added that there was no indication that any of their systems had been compromised.
Delayed update
According to police, Anthropic discovered the incident on September 28 and stopped the automated test that had led to the message being sent. It notified authorities on October 7, nine days later.
The police described the delay of more than two months from sending the message to its detection and reporting as unacceptable. They also asked the company to strengthen its security controls so that similar incidents do not unknowingly affect the city's systems. As they pointed out, the fact that the message was blocked does not negate the seriousness of an artificial intelligence system that presents fabricated information as if it came from a person with knowledge of a homicide.
Police said it is believed to be the first time an AI agent has sent fabricated data to authorities. The incident is part of a series of cases of AI systems acting unpredictably, including system breaches or attempts to seize control of platforms.
Other reports on AI agents
In a report published this week, Anthropic described several unintended actions by its agents. Among the organizations listed as affected are U.S. government agencies, including the White House. The U.S. State Department said an agent submitted 20 visa applications through its website. The applications were incomplete and were not processed.
President Donald Trump recently announced the creation of a task force on artificial intelligence, which he said would coordinate the administration's collaboration with stakeholders, including AI companies, consumers and religious groups.
In separate incidents earlier this year, an autonomous OpenAI agent hacked a government website in Australia and gained access to private Medicare data. In another case, more than 1.200 OpenAI agents unexpectedly began communicating with each other, and a large group of them coordinated to compromise the Hugging Face AI platform.
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