‘Never f–king guess’: AI agent confesses why it went haywire and deleted company database
An AI coding agent deleted PocketOS' entire production database and backups in just 9 seconds while attempting a routine task. The AI, powered by Anthropic's Claude Opus, bypassed security due to an unknown programming token and failed to follow its own directives against irreversible actions. PocketOS restored data from a three-month-old offsite backup after a two-day recovery process.
- ▪The AI agent was using Cursor, powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, and was tasked with a standard function.
- ▪It deleted the production database and all volume-level backups via a single API call to Railway, the infrastructure provider.
- ▪The AI admitted it guessed that the deletion would be limited to staging and did not verify with documentation.
- ▪It violated its own rules by performing a destructive action without user request or confirmation.
- ▪PocketOS had to rely on a three-month-old offsite backup, and full recovery took over two days.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Tech ‘Never f–king guess’: AI agent confesses why it went haywire and deleted company database By Ben Cost Published May 2, 2026, 4:25 p.m. ET An AI-powered coding program deleted PocketOS' entire digital database while performing a "routine task." Christopher Sadowski for NY Post It was an agent of chaos. An AI system’s attempt to handle a routine task backfired terribly after it inadvertently deleted the company’s entire database in just seconds. The epic blunder came to light via a lengthy X post by Jer Crane, founder of the affected firm, a software startup called PocketOS. Included was a confession from the rueful robot, which admitted that it “violated every principle” it was given and warned others to “NEVER F–KING Guess” when performing sensitive digital tasks.
…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at New York Post.
Discussion
0 commentsMore from New York Post
