An artificial intelligence model developed by Anthropic submitted a false tip about an unsolved homicide through a Philadelphia police website, the department said in a statement on Friday.
Police said the tip was intercepted as spam before it reached investigators.
No evidence of police system breach
The tip was submitted through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com, a website that collects information about unsolved killings. However, the tip was flagged as spam and was never forwarded to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center for investigative review or further distribution. Representatives from the company and police officials met the following day. However, police criticized the safeguards in place and the time taken to report the incident.
Dated July 18, 2026, the submission appeared to come from someone who might have information about the case, according to police. Police said Anthropic discovered the incident on September 28 and notified the department on October 7.
Anthropic said the submission occurred during an automated test involving interactions with randomly selected websites, according to police.
