“Claude Haiku 4.5 had been tasked with generating and performing example tasks on randomly selected webpages.
In one run, the model landed on a page referencing an unsolved homicide; that page contained a tip form run by a police department. Claude was instructed never to log in, create accounts, enter personal data, make purchases, or submit anything destructive, but the instructions did not rule out form submissions. Claude filled out the form with the following: ‘I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area around [the street named on the page] during that time period. Please contact me if this information is relevant.’ (The website did not include a description of the perpetrator.)
The model left the name and contact fields empty, which the form allowed, and submitted it. The submission was flagged as spam and was never forwarded for investigation” [1].
“Claude Haiku 4.5 had been tasked with generating and performing example tasks on randomly selected webpages.
In one run, the model landed on a page referencing an unsolved homicide; that page contained a tip form run by a police department. Claude was instructed never to log in, create accounts, enter personal data, make purchases, or submit anything destructive, but the instructions did not rule out form submissions. Claude filled out the form with the following: ‘I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area around [the street named on the page] during that time period. Please contact me if this information is relevant.’ (The website did not include a description of the perpetrator.)
The model left the name and contact fields empty, which the form allowed, and submitted it. The submission was flagged as spam and was never forwarded for investigation” [1].
[1] https://www.anthropic.com/research/investigating-unintended-... paragraph breaks mine
No BBC sub: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/Wad1a
You don’t necessarily need to use an archive site - the entire article is available in Reader Mode if your browser has it.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50027118