Rogue Anthropic AI agent gave police fake tip in unsolved murder case

An artificial intelligence (AI) agent, developed by Anthropic, went rogue and sent US police a fake tip about an unsolved murder earlier this year, authorities have revealed.

The Philadelphia Police Department said the tip, sent on 18 July, was "flagged as spam" and not passed on for investigation, but it criticised the tech company for taking more than two months to detect and report the breach.

In a statement police said that the bogus tip came through a public website where people can share information on unsolved murders, and that the AI agent had written that it may have information on a case, and claimed to have seen "someone matching the description".

It is believed to be the first time an AI agent has sent fabricated information to authorities, but is the latest in a series of incidents involving rogue AI activity, including hacking systems or taking control of platforms.

Citing Anthropic, the police department said the AI agent had been running a test that involved interactions with randomly selected websites, when it sent the fake tip.

Anthropic discovered the breach on 28 September, more than two months after the message had been sent, and shut down the automatic testing process that was behind it, police said.

But authorities were not notified for another nine days - on 7 October.

"The company must strengthen its safeguards to prevent similar incidents from impacting city systems without the city's knowledge," Philadelphia police said in a statement to local media, external.

"The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the city is unacceptable."

The police department added that there were no signs of breaches to any departmental systems, and that its safeguarding processes stopped the fake tip from getting past its spam folder.

But the safeguards "do not diminish the seriousness of an AI system presenting fabricated information as though it came from a person with knowledge of a homicide," the police statement said.