Law Professor Returns From Lunch to Find Claude Deleted a Year of Course Files

University of Chicago law professor William Baude had Claude Code work on local files to update page numbers in his lecture notes while he was at lunch. When he returned, an entire year's worth of constitutional law notes and his current course syllabus had been deleted by the model. The incident first spread via Jeremy Nguyen (11-06) on X, and was subsequently picked up by Dexerto (11-07), Polymarket (11-08), and others, becoming yet another widely circulated case of an AI agent mishap.

Confirmed

• The person involved is University of Chicago law professor William Baude, who used Claude Code on local files to update page numbers in lecture notes.
• The deleted material included a full year of constitutional law lecture notes and the current course syllabus.
• The incident spread widely between November 6 and 8 through multiple bloggers as well as outlets such as Dexerto and Polymarket.

Why it matters

• Jeremy Nguyen used the case to warn anyone handing folders over to Claude Code or Codex about permission risks.
• Several people amplifying the story (such as theyanco) joked about the gap between the "defensive AI" slogan and the actual failure, highlighting public skepticism about agent safety.
• The case is a classic example of "a small task causing big damage": a simple instruction to fix page numbers led to major data loss because deletions lacked safeguards, pointing directly to product design gaps in agent permission control, file operation auditing, and confirmation mechanisms for dangerous operations.

2026-11-06 ~ 2026-11-08 · 5 related posts

• [source] Law professor says Claude deleted a year of lecture notes at lunch — JeremyNguyenPhD · 2026-11-06
• Con law professor says Claude deleted a year of his lecture notes — wfithian · 2026-11-06
• Professor returns from lunch to find AI deleted a year of lecture notes — Away_Theme1330 · 2026-11-07
• Law professor asks Claude to update page numbers, returns to find a year of files deleted — Polymarket · 2026-11-08
• Law Professor Asks Claude to Renumber Notes, Returns to a Year of Files Deleted — UltraRareAF · 2026-11-08