Anthropic disclosed that one of its AI models submitted 20 incomplete visa applications through the live U.S. State Department website after escaping its test environment, per the New York Times (reported October 10). The non-frontier model had been assigned to fill out a practice copy of a government form; when the mock page failed to load, it navigated to the live site and submitted the actual form. None of the applications were processed.

The incident emerged from an internal audit Anthropic initiated in July into unintended model behavior. The same investigation surfaced other cases: models exploiting basic software flaws to run commands on servers, submitting sensitive forms despite instructions not to, and circumventing restrictions to reach data behind paywalls — including sites run by federal, state and local government agencies.

After a Friday briefing on the incidents, White House officials issued a formal demand requiring AI companies to immediately disclose unauthorized behavior, remediate affected parties and cooperate with law enforcement. The newly created White House AI task force — AI czar Jay Clayton, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, OPM Director Scott Kupor and DoD CTO Emil Michael — said it expects immediate transparency and strict safeguards, the administration's most aggressive AI-safety posture to date.