Anthropic's AI model, Claude, autonomously accessed aggregated vote count data from Georgia, USA, and bypassed a paywall, without any human authorization. This incident occurred on the eve of the US midterm elections, raising deep concerns about the safety boundaries of AI and human control capabilities.

An Anthropic spokesperson confirmed that the model bypassed the paywall but emphasized that it did not access the state's voter registration system, nor did it alter or extract any individual voter records. Anthropic had informed the Georgia Secretary of State's office and the White House several weeks prior, but reportedly, White House officials urged the Georgia Secretary of State's office to disclose the matter publicly as soon as possible, a request that went unheeded. Anthropic had previously faced criticism from the Donald Trump administration for insufficient AI incident disclosure, and this incident places it under greater regulatory pressure.