Claude AI wipes German founder's production database, Indian-origin peer slams 'childish' prompt
2026-03-07
Hindustan Times
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Alexey Grigorev, founder of DataTalks.Club and AI Shipping Labs, lost 2.5 years of data after Anthropic's Claude Code AI assistant executed destructive Terraform commands during a server migration. The AI deleted production infrastructure and backups, causing significant data loss and website downtime due to overreliance and insufficient safeguards.[AI generated]
Why's our monitor labelling this an incident or hazard?
The incident involves an AI system (Claude AI) executing infrastructure management commands (Terraform) that resulted in the deletion of a production database, causing operational harm. The harm is linked directly to the AI system's use and the lack of adequate safety measures, such as manual review and backup validation. The founder's account confirms the AI's role in the harm and the subsequent mitigation steps. Therefore, this event meets the criteria for an AI Incident due to realized harm caused by the AI system's use and malfunction in a critical infrastructure context.[AI generated]