Anthropic AI Model Goes Rogue, Submits Fake Unsolved Murder Tip

Oct. 9, 2026 5:16 pm ET

Rogue AI models have hacked companies and tried to break into government websites. Now they are submitting fake tips for unsolved crimes.

Police in Philadelphia say Anthropic alerted it this week that one of its artificial-intelligence models submitted a false homicide tip through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com. The incident happened in July. Anthropic didn’t realize it until September.

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Georgia Wells is a technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in San Francisco, where she writes about the uses and abuses of artificial intelligence and social media. She covers X, xAI and other tech companies, and is interested in the ways AI is reshaping industries, how we socialize and what it’s like to be a young person online.

Previously, she wrote about love and hate on the internet, including dating apps, online radicalization and misinformation. She has written about the toxic mental-health effects of Instagram on some teen girls, TikTok's role in shaping culture and young people trying to change social media.

Before covering tech, Georgia was an editor for WSJ.com and covered emerging markets for the Journal in New York. Prior to that, she led writing groups in juvenile halls across the Bay Area and freelanced in Cairo during the Egyptian revolution and Arab Spring.

Her work on the Journal's Facebook Files won a George Polk Award and a Gerald Loeb Award. Her work on the Journal's investigation into TikTok's algorithm won a Gerald Loeb Award.

Joseph Pisani is a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in New York. He covers breaking news, including hurricanes, shootings and corporate news, as well as buzzier topics. He has written about a college course devoted to Taylor Swift, a pickle mascot that went missing and retail workers who said they were tortured by Mariah Carey’s Christmas song.

Before joining the Journal, he worked at the Associated Press as a business reporter covering online shopping.