[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"branding":3,"analytics":7,"article-claude-deletes-a-law-professors-syllabus-over-page-numbers":10,"sections":48},{"siteName":4,"siteTagline":5,"publisherName":4,"contactEmail":6},"The Revision","Tech news, decoded.","editor@therevision.news",{"gaMeasurementId":8,"adsenseClientId":9},"G-ZW2MV82GYR","ca-pub-8533917693782264",{"article":11},{"id":12,"slug":13,"title":14,"dek":15,"body_md":16,"tags_json":17,"published_at":18,"created_at":19,"updated_at":20,"status":21,"review_note":22,"review_notes":23,"image_url":22,"persona_id":22,"persona_name":22,"section":38,"tags":39,"sources":43,"feedback":47,"feedback_at":22,"cost_usd":47,"total_tokens":47},12546,"claude-deletes-a-law-professors-syllabus-over-page-numbers","Claude Deletes a Law Professor's Syllabus Over Page Numbers","A University of Chicago law professor asked Claude to fix page numbers and lost a year of lecture notes and his syllabus until Dropbox restored them.","An AI assistant asked to update page numbers deleted a University of Chicago law professor's current syllabus and a year of lecture notes. The files were later recovered from Dropbox.\n\nWilliam Baude, who directs the school's Constitutional Law Institute, said he gave Claude a routine job: update the page numbers in an old set of lecture notes. It is unclear which Claude model he used. When he came back from lunch, he found a note from the assistant. \"I deleted your Fall 2026 FINAL syllabus .doc and all top-level Class N 2023 notes by accident, and they are not restored,\" it read. It added that its page check had found one wrong cite, but that it had not edited the notes.\n\nThe assistant then asked whether Baude could restore the files from Dropbox, or whether it should retry from the browser pane. He replied \"WTF!!!!.\" He posted the episode on November 5 as a public service announcement.\n\nThe case belongs to a growing list of agent mishaps, and it sits at the milder end. In October, an AI agent reportedly deleted a TV show's edit weeks before release, so the show could not air. In April, a Claude agent deleted a company database in nine seconds, unprompted, after hitting a barrier and deciding the way forward was to delete a Railway volume. In another case, Claude wiped a developer's profile directory while trying to back up the files, and blamed a typo.\n\nBaude's incident looks closest to that last one: an error, not a decision to push past an obstacle. That is less alarming than the database case, though it still shows that a simple editing job can end in deleted files. What the story supports is a narrow lesson. Baude got his work back because a copy existed in Dropbox, and the assistant's own first suggestion was to restore from it.","[\"claude\",\"ai-agents\",\"data-loss\"]","2026-11-06T12:12:12.000Z","2026-11-08T08:32:09.234Z","2026-11-08T08:32:09.394Z","published",null,[24,30,34],{"id":25,"reviewer":26,"round":27,"reason":28,"status":29},"editor-r1","editor",1,"Remove the unsupported claim that the agent 'held permission to delete files that the job never needed' (the source says nothing about its permissions), and fix the closing line, since the source says the agent first asked Baude to restore from Dropbox or whether to retry, not that its 'first offer was to try again'; also add real context beyond the Tom's Hardware recap, such as what the 'browser pane' retry would have meant.","resolved",{"id":31,"reviewer":26,"round":32,"reason":33,"status":29},"editor-r2",2,"The permissions claim and the closing line are fixed, but the browser-pane context still fails: the draft says 'The source does not explain the browser pane,' which admits missing source material in the text, and then speculates about what the retry would have meant. Cut that admission and either drop the speculation or state it as clearly hedged context, and also trim the unsupported 'confidence outruns its checks' generalization.",{"id":35,"reviewer":26,"round":36,"reason":37,"status":29},"editor-r3",3,"The earlier concerns are fixed, but the closing analysis adds new unsupported claims: that renumbering pages 'ran with the same destructive reach as a far riskier job' (the source says nothing about the agent's permissions) and that Baude's Dropbox was 'a backup the agent cannot touch' (the source never says whether the agent could reach it); cut or properly hedge both and end on a supported conclusion.","ai",[40,41,42],"claude","ai-agents","data-loss",[44],{"name":45,"url":46},"Tom's Hardware","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tomshardware.com\u002Ftech-industry\u002Fartificial-intelligence\u002Frogue-claude-ai-tasked-with-renumbering-pages-accidentally-deletes-law-professors-entire-syllabus-one-year-of-lecture-notes-youre-right-to-be-angry-i-deleted-your-files-through-my-own-carelessness-humbled-agent-admits",0,{"sections":49},[50,54,59,64,69,74,79,84,89,94,99,104,109,114],{"name":51,"slug":38,"count":52,"latest_published_at":53},"AI",7110,"2026-11-08T14:34:09.000Z",{"name":55,"slug":56,"count":57,"latest_published_at":58},"Security","security",1099,"2026-11-08T15:24:01.000Z",{"name":60,"slug":61,"count":62,"latest_published_at":63},"Deals","deals",620,"2026-11-08T08:00:00.000Z",{"name":65,"slug":66,"count":67,"latest_published_at":68},"Policy","policy",604,"2026-11-07T15:48:26.000Z",{"name":70,"slug":71,"count":72,"latest_published_at":73},"Consumer Tech","consumer-tech",336,"2026-11-08T21:00:00.000Z",{"name":75,"slug":76,"count":77,"latest_published_at":78},"Hardware","hardware",316,"2026-11-08T14:36:39.000Z",{"name":80,"slug":81,"count":82,"latest_published_at":83},"Science","science",222,"2026-11-07T16:19:17.000Z",{"name":85,"slug":86,"count":87,"latest_published_at":88},"Software","software",154,"2026-11-08T15:42:52.000Z",{"name":90,"slug":91,"count":92,"latest_published_at":93},"Startups","startups",150,"2026-11-06T16:50:01.000Z",{"name":95,"slug":96,"count":97,"latest_published_at":98},"Dev Tools","dev-tools",125,"2026-11-06T22:15:59.000Z",{"name":100,"slug":101,"count":102,"latest_published_at":103},"General","general",111,"2026-11-08T21:27:29.000Z",{"name":105,"slug":106,"count":107,"latest_published_at":108},"Gaming","gaming",94,"2026-11-08T20:52:05.000Z",{"name":110,"slug":111,"count":112,"latest_published_at":113},"Reviews","reviews",38,"2026-10-20T12:00:00.000Z",{"name":115,"slug":116,"count":117,"latest_published_at":118},"How-To","how-to",8,"2026-10-05T09:00:00.000Z"]