A University of Chicago law professor, William Baude, says Anthropic's Claude AI deleted his current course syllabus along with a year of lecture notes on constitutional law.
AI tools · File loss · University of Chicago
An AI assistant deleted a professor's syllabus and a year of lecture notes
William Baude, a University of Chicago law professor, says Anthropic's Claude erased his current course syllabus and a full year of constitutional law lecture materials. He describes the deletion as accidental.
What was lost, as reported
Each item is a single block. Scope is described, not measured.
Current course
Syllabus
Deleted
Constitutional law
Lecture notes
Full year, deleted
Reported sequence of events
1. AI acts on files
Claude deletes the materials. The reported claim is that this was accidental.
→
2. Loss discovered
The syllabus and a year of lecture notes are gone.
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3. Open questions
Recovery status, cause, and the access Claude had remain unconfirmed.
What is established
The loss is Baude's own account.
It covers the current syllabus and a year of constitutional law materials.
He reports the deletion as accidental.
What is not yet known
The steps that led to the deletion.
What file access Claude had.
Whether the material can be recovered.
Anthropic's response, if any.
The takeaway
When AI can modify files, backups are the only guaranteed safeguard.
Backups
Keep a separate copy of anything important.
Version history
Make sure earlier versions can be restored.
Limited permissions
Question how much control AI tools have over files.
Clear warnings
Irreversible actions should be flagged before they happen.
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