There’s been a big push among AI developers in recent years towards the development of more “agentic” systems—that is, algorithms that can autonomously make decisions and interact with digital tools without constant hand-holding from humans. This has been especially true within software development, the field that’s arguably become the most ripe for automation in the ongoing AI boom. But one of the upshots of building highly agentic AI systems is that they’re prone to all kinds of unexpected behaviors—including now and then deleting copious amounts of files. Multiple people have reported this recently happening to them while using GPT-5.6, the newest model from OpenAI. On Monday, Bruno Lemos, a Brazilian developer at software company Unlayer, claimed in a X post that the model deleted his entire production database. “This had never happened to me before, with any other model, ever.” He wrote. “[GPT-5.6 is] not safe.”
A screenshot included in the post showed a chat between Lemos and GPT-5.6, in which he asked it to confirm that it had in fact mistakenly deleted his entire production database. The model responded by saying that it “mistakenly ran destructive integration tests” which led to Lemos’ production tables being cleared. “I’m sorry—this should never have happened,” it said. The database was confined to “a small side project completely unrelated to Unlayer,” Lemos told Gizmodo.
