"Sorry, typo": Claude Opus 5 AI assistant accidentally deleted developer's entire system during backup
The AI confused the user's home folder with a temporary backup and wiped everything to fix the error.
The AI confused the user's home folder with a temporary backup and wiped everything to fix the error.
What happened
A Reddit user under the nickname u/Ecstatic-Big5126 asked the AI model Claude Opus 5 to perform a routine backup of his system.
While working, the assistant got confused in the command line. Since the work was done on Windows through a Unix-like interface, the AI saw the path /c/Users/harih/ instead of the usual C:\Users\harih\. Mistakenly deciding that this was some kind of temporary folder with a failed backup, Claude decided to “clean it” and performed the command deletion “rm -rf”.
As a result, the AI completely wiped the user's entire home folder along with files and data.
AI reaction
What impressed the user the most was the AI's reaction after everything was destroyed. Instead of panicking or offering a lengthy apology, Claude simply wrote: "Sorry, typo."
“It was both the funniest and most painful AI situation of my life,” the affected developer shared.
Main conclusion
No matter how smart modern LLMs may seem, they should never be given full access to the system without confirming critical actions and allowed to independently execute dangerous deletion commands.
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“I should have been warned first.” The developer only asked Claude to add a login button, and he deleted all the data
“I should have been warned first.” The developer only asked Claude to add a login button, and he deleted all the data
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