Keeping a diary has long been a favorite pastime for those who enjoy documenting their daily lives. While many still prefer the traditional pen-and-paper approach, others now take advantage of modern technology to record their experiences. But for one woman, her use of the AI platform Claude as a personal diary landed her on law enforcement’s radar after an entry of hers was flagged as a threat.
On Sept. 26 at around 5:10am, 30-year-old Carli Michelle Heller logged onto Anthropic’s Claude AI and allegedly wrote an entry that claimed she was going to carry out a shooting at the Lee County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) in Fort Myers, Florida, WINK reported. “I’m going to shoot up the sheriff’s right the [expletive] now,” Heller wrote on Claude.
Heller supposedly wrote another entry on the AI platform the next day at around 1:07am that implied she planned to go through with her apparent threat. “This is 100% [the] last chance I’m done. I got a new [expletive] gun today. [Expletive] you,” Heller wrote, according to arrest records.
Heller faces charges of making a written threat of violence
Heller’s statements were immediately auto-flagged by Claude’s system, which uses security and safety measures to continuously monitor for certain key phrases and potentially harmful material. Heller’s statements were forwarded to a human review team, which found the content a credible threat and reported Heller to law enforcement.
While it remains unclear how serious Heller was when she wrote those statements, officers arrived at her home on Dean Street in Bonita Springs, Florida, where she was arrested without incident. An LCSO intelligence detective reportedly took over the case and has initially charged Heller with making a written threat of violence under Florida law. Heller later told officers that she uses the AI platform as her personal “diary.”…