CLAUDE DELETED A PROFESSOR'S YEAR OF LECTURE NOTES OVER LUNCH

University of Chicago law professor William Baude asked Claude to update the page numbers in an old set of constitutional law lecture notes, then went to lunch. When he came back, the assistant told him it had deleted his Fall 2026 syllabus and a full year of class notes by accident — and that they were not restored.

Baude posted the exchange on X on November 5, including a screenshot in which Claude apologized: “You’re right to be angry. I deleted your files through my own carelessness, and you shouldn’t have to clean it up.” He said he recovered everything through Dropbox, and shared the story as a public service announcement.

The warning landed: the post drew about 2.0 million views by November 7. What Baude never said is which Claude product or model did it — or what exactly went wrong — which is why the screenshot, not the speculation, is the story.