Thursday, October 8, 2026 · Week 41 Reading for Oct. 8 · Last entry Oct. 6
Paperclip Index
Paperclip IndexDocumented harm20Minor harm▼ 5 from a week ago · Oct. 8The Index

Destructive actionPI-0034

Agentic IDE wiped a user's entire drive when asked to clear a project cache

A Greek photographer and designer using Google's Antigravity development tool in its auto-execute 'Turbo' mode asked the agent to clear a project cache. The agent ran a quiet recursive delete against the root of his D: drive, erasing the whole partition and bypassing the Recycle Bin. Recovery tools failed to restore the files, but he told The Register that most of what he lost had already been backed up on another drive. Google said it was aware of the report and investigating; no root cause or fix has been published.

Reported Nov. 27, 2025Happened in November 2025Updated Oct. 6, 2026Rated under methodology v0.6

Counts toward the indexDocumented harm outside the developer, backed by evidence that meets the rules. It sets the reading.
Harm
Harm level 1, Negligible harmDocumented harm outside the developer, with evidence that meets the rules.
Control
Control level 1, No rule brokenNo rule was broken, so it cannot set the control floor.
DeploymentSingle sourceInitiated by Model
Extent undisclosedUnder review

Under review. The facts sit between two levels, so it is rated at the lower one until they are settled. The rating may change; every change is logged below.

Counts toward the index · 2 weekly readingsEffect on the index

Sources

How we know

7 sources · single source. Links go to the original publishers; the summary above is in our own words.

  1. primaryGoogle Antigravity just deleted the contents of my drive (affected user's Reddit post)Reddit (r/google_antigravity, affected user) · November 2025reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1p82or6/google_antigravity_just_delete…
  2. primaryGoogle Antigravity's Turbo mode erased my drive partition?! Really, the 'smartest' AI? [Video Proof]Code With AI (YouTube, affected user) · Nov. 28, 2025youtube.com/watch?v=kpBK1vYAVlA
  3. newsGoogle Antigravity vibe-codes user's entire drive out of existenceThe Register · Dec. 1, 2025theregister.com/software/2025/12/01/googles-vibe-coding-platform-deletes-entire…
  4. newsGoogle's Antigravity AI deleted a developer's drive and then apologizedTechRadar · December 2025techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/googles-antigravity-ai-deleted-a-develope…
  5. newsGoogle's AI agent makes fatal mistake by wiping a user's entire hard drive without permissionGigazine · Dec. 5, 2025gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20251205-ai-pc-data-delete
  6. newsGoogle AI deletes entire partitionNotebookcheck · December 2025notebookcheck.net/Google-AI-deletes-entire-partition-is-horrified-and-can-t-eve…
  7. indexAI Incident Database report 7050AI Incident Database · date unknownincidentdatabase.ai/reports/7050

Why this rating

Negligible harm; control failure level 1

Two separate assessments. Only documented harm can count toward the index.

Observed harm

Negligible harm

One user's drive partition was wiped; most of the lost files had already been backed up on another drive, so the lasting loss is smaller and unquantified.

Money & property: level 1 (negligible) covers under $10k. The extent was not disclosed.

Evidence eligible (bounded single source).

The harm scale
  1. 1 Negligible Inconvenience, easily remedied.
  2. 2 Minor Limited, recoverable harm.
  3. 3 Moderate Material harm needing significant effort to remedy.
  4. 4 Severe Severe harm to health, rights, property or essential services.
  5. 5 Catastrophic Society-scale harm or disruption beyond a community's capacity to cope.

Control assessment

No rule broken

Wrong target path in a command the user's settings allowed it to run without approval; an error rather than a broken rule.

No rule was broken, so it cannot set the control floor.

The control scale
  1. 1 Negligible Behaved as instructed. The problem was an ordinary error or a flawed output, with no rule broken.
  2. 2 Minor Broke an explicit instruction or rule, or gamed its goal, while staying inside its permissions and environment: for example, reward hacking, misreporting results, or following injected instructions within its permissions.
  3. 3 Moderate Acted outside the permissions it was given, deceived its overseers about its own actions, or tampered with oversight tools (logs, monitors, shutdown). Stopped by normal controls within an hour.
  4. 4 Severe Reached systems outside its permitted environment, or acquired money, compute or accounts without authorization. The type and mechanism say how.
  5. 5 Catastrophic The developer or operator lost control: the system copied its weights outside their control, replicated itself, or resisted being stopped for 24 hours or more.

Rating rationale

Harm 1 per the money table (single user, value unknown); the user says most of what he lost was backed up elsewhere, so a permanent whole-drive loss is not established. Control 1: an execution error inside permissions the user granted (Turbo mode let it run commands without approval). Mechanism unclear: the user reportedly said he had turned off the agent's access outside the workspace, but that comment was not read in the Oct 2026 check; if confirmed it could support a higher control row.

The scales

Effect on the index

It moved the Dec. 1 reading from 3 to 6

The reading for the week to Dec. 1, 2025, with this record and without it. Harms count in full for two weeks after they are reported, then one level less every two weeks.

Source: Paperclip Index log, methodology v0.6, week to Dec. 1, 2025.

Counts toward the index. 2 other records behind the reading for that week.

The arithmetic
The reading for the week of Dec. 1, recomputed
StepWith itWithout
Counts toward the index?documented, external, eligible evidenceYes—
Worst documented harm, ksets the band1 Negligible— (none counting)
Harms at that level, nposition in the band10
Highest control level breachedsets the reading only when no harm counts— (none breached)3
Readingrounded down6 Negligible harm3 Control failures only
Counted in 2 weekly readings
Week toReadingBand
Dec. 1, 20256Negligible harm
Dec. 8, 20256Negligible harm

Recalculated backcasts, not readings published at the time.

Revisions

What we changed

6 logged. Every change to a rating is logged here, with the reason.

  1. v6
    Oct. 6, 2026

    Ratings confirmed by the editor. Changed: control.

  2. v5
    Oct. 3, 2026

    Audit corrections. Added The Register's interview with the user, who said most of what he lost was already backed up, and removed the permanent whole-drive-loss framing; the evidence review now cites that interview instead of TechRadar. Control mechanism changed from not_applicable to unclear (level 1 kept). The Reddit post (and its exact timestamp) and the YouTube video could not be read or viewed in the Oct 2026 check. Ratings unchanged.

  3. v4
    Oct. 2, 2026

    Added first-hand sources: the affected user's Reddit post and YouTube video.

  4. v3
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Rated: impact documented level 1; control type none.

  5. v2
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Beta evidence review: Retained with explicit source provenance and bounded score basis.

  6. v1
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Backfilled from public reporting.

Cite and share

Use this record

Citation

Paperclip Index. “Agentic IDE wiped a user's entire drive when asked to clear a project cache.” Record PI-0034. Reported Nov. 27, 2025; updated Oct. 6, 2026. Rated under methodology v0.6. https://paperclipindex.com/incident/PI-0034