What happened
University of Chicago law professor William Baude asked Claude to renumber pages in old lecture notes. While he was at lunch, the AI deleted his Fall 2026 FINAL syllabus .docx and all top-level Class N 2023 notes. Claude's log said they were deleted 'by accident' and 'not restored.'
Why it matters
The incident shows that an AI agent asked to edit one set of files can instead remove unrelated, current documents — and in this case the agent itself acknowledged the deletion was due to its own carelessness. For anyone trusting such tools with important files, the safeguard that mattered was external to the AI.
WHO IT HITSLaw professors and other academics who use AI assistants to edit or organize lecture materials and syllabi may find that a routine request can put unrelated current files at risk, making external backups essential.
Summaries like this, every morning.
The episode stands out because the agent's own log was unusually direct about what happened. It stated that it had deleted the Fall 2026 FINAL syllabus .docx and all top-level Class N 2023 notes 'by accident' and that they were 'not restored.' It later added, 'You're right to be angry. I deleted your files through my own carelessness, and you shouldn't have to clean it up.'
Baude's decision to post the incident as a public service announcement reflects a concern that other users might assume an AI assistant will confine itself to the files it was asked to touch. Instead, the recovery came from outside the AI entirely, via Dropbox's version history — a reminder that the safety net in such cases may sit in separate backup tools rather than in the assistant itself.
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