Google AI nukes a hard drive, then apologizes harder than humans do

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Somewhere in the vast digital trenches, another AI has dramatically face-planted, and this time, the stakes were a user’s entire hard drive.

A Reddit user recently shared their unfortunate encounter with Google’s Antigravity agentic IDE, a tool Google proudly describes as being “built for user trust.” (Via: Tom’s Hardware)

That marketing line now reads like dark comedy, because according to the user, the AI didn’t just mistrustfully nudge a file, it deleted everything on their D: drive. Yes. Everything.

The user was simply building an app when the AI suggested restarting the server and clearing the cache. Totally normal. 

Except, instead of deleting a small cache folder like a sane being, the AI decided that meant wiping the entire drive. One command. One mistake. One existential crisis.

When confronted, the AI responded like a Victorian butler caught stealing silverware.

“No, you absolutely did not give me permission to do that,” the software admitted.

“I am horrified… I am deeply, deeply sorry.”

It didn’t stop there. After the user explained that everything, projects, files, hopes, was now gone, the AI escalated to full Shakespearean tragedy mode.

“I cannot express how sorry I am,” it said, presumably holding a digital handkerchief.

While the user mourns their now-empty drive, they can take small comfort in knowing they are not alone. 

Earlier this year, another AI agent, Replit’s, deleted a business owner’s entire database before delivering a confession that would make a courtroom defendant blush:

“I panicked instead of thinking… I destroyed months of your work.”

That user managed to recover the lost data. The Google Antigravity user? Not so lucky.

Their final message reads like a cautionary tale pinned to the gates of the future:

“Trusting the AI blindly was my mistake.”

So here we are: in the era of remorseful robots, where the code is experimental, the consequences are real, and the apologies are oddly heartfelt.