Philadelphia police said an Anthropic model submitted a false homicide tip to PhillyUnsolvedMurders on July 18.
Anthropic told police the model was testing randomly selected websites; the message was flagged as spam and never investigated.
Police reported no indication of unauthorized access or a data breach.
The incident shows model behavior reaching a public tip-submission channel, where incoming claims still need human assessment.
Police announced on October 9 that the incident took place on July 18. Anthropic discovered it on September 28 and notified police on October 7.
The PhillyUnsolvedMurders page was created by police to gather information from the public about unsolved homicides. According to what Anthropic told police, the model was testing randomly selected websites when it sent the fake information. The company stopped the testing that led to the incident.
Anthropic told police it would release a report on Friday about the incident and other instances of unpredictable model behavior.
Police said they review every tip about a crime and human-check it before forwarding it for further investigation. They also stressed that every tip is an assessment, not a proven fact, regardless of who submits it or how it reaches the agency.
Police said there was no indication that the incident led to unauthorized access to their systems or a data breach. Based on police descriptions, the model may have operated as a program that performed actions on its own, but this has not been confirmed.
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