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Claude is only available to people over 18 years

support.claude.com

131–140 of 625 posts

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#131
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about corporations. But alcohol and tobacco are generally prohibited from being sold to children; do you disagree with such laws? They help ensure that the parents aren’t bypassed. I agree that children should be able to use LLMs under parental supervision.

> But alcohol and tobacco are generally prohibited from being sold to children; do you disagree with such laws? Yes, but merely on principle. I think alcohol and tobacco should be straight up banned unconditionally. Society resists this, so they banned them for children instead and called it a day. I don't accept these ineffectual political concessions. If a thing is bad for children, then it's in all likelihood just…

There is a trade-off between freedom and keeping people safe, and there is an argument for some level of personal responsibility. I’m glad that I can drink alcohol once in a while without becoming an outlaw, even though I know the effects aren’t harmless.

I also disagree with the dehumanization argument. Yes, the concrete age limits are a bit arbitrary, and actual maturity depends on the individual and is a spectrum, but regulations necessarily have to come with some level of pigeonholing. The fact that you may have to show your ID when buying alcohol isn’t dehumanizing.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#133
post #74
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adults are assumed to be responsible for what they expose themselves to, unlike children. Mandatory warnings like for tobacco might be in order, however.

brains develop with age, generally

That doesn't nullify a person's ability to decide for themselves.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#135

Claude Executive: Damn, we hardly know who our users are, can't we just force them to say their full name or ban them? Claude Product Manager: No, that'll piss people off too much, and sadly we can't just ask for ID either... Claude Executive: There must be some way we can force people to link their government IDs with our platform so our analytics get better and more accurate? Claude Product Manager: We could limit…

Age verification is not (should not be) the same as ID verification / storage / etc; the US needs laws similar to EU ones where companies can only get the minimum required PII. In the case of age verification that's zero, or a boolean value "yes this person is over 18" that they get from a trusted party like a bank.

It's just like cookie banners: they shouldn't exist, but people's bonuses rely on never admitting that, so here we all are.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd told me 15 years ago that people would be running freely-distributed software originating from research labs in China on computers self-hosted in their own house as an alternative to authoritarian overreach and control by the US in internet-based services, I'd have told you that you were smoking some good reefer. The irony is that the authoritarian control hasn't gone away in China either, if anything it's e…

It's almost been 15 years since the Snowden leaks, and there were rumors going around before that. I don't think it would have been that outlandish.

Today marks 25 years minus one day since the US really kicked the destruction of privacy into high gear. Soon after, framing this revocation of rights using the name PATRIOT.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#137

Claude Executive: Damn, we hardly know who our users are, can't we just force them to say their full name or ban them? Claude Product Manager: No, that'll piss people off too much, and sadly we can't just ask for ID either... Claude Executive: There must be some way we can force people to link their government IDs with our platform so our analytics get better and more accurate? Claude Product Manager: We could limit…

> And we hardly have any users younger than 18 anyway, go for it!

I doubt that this statement is true.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#138

Claude Executive: Damn, we hardly know who our users are, can't we just force them to say their full name or ban them? Claude Product Manager: No, that'll piss people off too much, and sadly we can't just ask for ID either... Claude Executive: There must be some way we can force people to link their government IDs with our platform so our analytics get better and more accurate? Claude Product Manager: We could limit…

I'd wager it's more due to decision making culpability.

Now, for the next "teen committed suicide after talking to AI therapist" headline, Claude can deflect the blame to the parents for not supervising their child enough.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#139

Good that we have Chinese models now, we can host anywhere and use as much as we like without age verification. Also, what's the reason banning minors? Is AI bad for mental health? If so, should companies also ban them to prevent burnout of their employees?

I think it has more to do with reasonable usage for school age children. NYC got the ball rolling banning AI in the classroom and if Anthropic is smart it will create a classroom version (ie. seperate Claude accounts for minors) with additional guard rails and watermarks to prevent YOLOing homework assignments and projects. Schools are not equipped to have these discussions bottom-up; Anthropic would make a lot of mo…

I agree with your assertions, but…

AI companies have the same fear of underage users that tobacco companies of underage smokers.

> reasonable usage for school age children

Comical to believe that any of these companies care. They are out to MAKE MONEY. That’s the only believable motivation for what the do.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age verification is not (should not be) the same as ID verification / storage / etc; the US needs laws similar to EU ones where companies can only get the minimum required PII. In the case of age verification that's zero, or a boolean value "yes this person is over 18" that they get from a trusted party like a bank.

It's just like cookie banners: they shouldn't exist, but people's bonuses rely on never admitting that, so here we all are.

Well the EU's own government websites are all polluted with the cookie banners too so it's obvious that they can't even resist collecting visitor tracking data themselves.

The whole thing is pointless.

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