Claude is only available to people over 18 years • Hacker News Board

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#381

Post by z0r » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #362

newswasboring wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The need is not in question, the solution is. This annoying glaze machine is not it for mental health tasks.

Tens of millions of people disagree with you. What makes you think you know better than them what is right for them?

This line of reasoning doesn't hold up for many harmful habits that people voluntarily partake in. It's OK for someone to believe that using an AI as an approximate therapist might be a bad idea, especially in light of the many publicly documented cases of AI feeding delusional thoughts and encouraging suicide.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#382

Post by Hizonner » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:13 PM UTC

TZubiri wrote: post #126

embedding-shape wrote: post #33

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…

This cynic take only makes sense if you have no children btw, because for you children don't exist, but you as an adult exist, so you only consider the possible impacts this may have on you as an adult. That the impacts on adults are negligible compared on children is irrelevant, because they are multiplied by 0, since they don't apply to you, so you only consider the infitesimal effect it has on you as an adult. For…

I'm a parent. I care about children. That's why I hate this wave of hysteria cutting them off from everything. It's way more damaging to children, and especially to teenagers, than any of the stuff it's supposed to protect against. And frankly that's obvious if you haven't let yourself get worked into a frenzy.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#383

Post by superxpro12 » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:14 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #317

embedding-shape wrote: post #33

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'm imagining a future where a bunch of bizarre laws interact oddly (as they do), and now we've got websites with unnecessary nudity pasted in the corner. "Oh, those? Those are just compliance tits. Ignore those. It's just a thing that came a few years after we finally got rid of the cookie banners. The companies wanted certain protections awarded only to 18+ sites. But you can't just declare yourself an 18+ site, so…

and its 1 pixel wide. I propose the term pixtit

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#384

Post by positron26 » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:14 PM UTC

I suppose we will tell them to vote for better laws?

That last few years of being under 18 can feel completely immoral. "Study hard. Learn skills you will need in life." Meanwhile GPA inflation from unconcerned minders of public institutions will put food on their own table, so accessing anything that will actually move your life ahead will generally require money or ingenuity.

Piracy isn't my religion, but I find it a critical relief valve protecting individual self-determination, especially for young people. Over-centralization of capability into hosted services creates a wall for a problem that needed more relief valves.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#385

Post by kalkin » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:14 PM UTC

Patient0 wrote: post #193

The date says May 18, 2026 - so this is four months old, right?

That looks like when the support page was last updated -- was Claude even available for minors before that?

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#386

Post by kalkin » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:15 PM UTC

mdp2021 wrote: post #293

khalic wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300 messages and counting, and you're the first one I see making the comment. Shame on everybody here for not doing their basic due diligence of reading the fkn article before posting or reacting

> only one He is not. (Edited out a piece here which made sense only with the former version of the parent.) 49656423, 49656530, 49656641, 49656679, 49656711, 49656738, 49656911, 49657090, 49657390 (the one that got noted)... The piece remains relevant for many ongoing reasons.

If this is posted because it's "still relevant", the headline probably shouldn't say "no longer".

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#387

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

CrazyStat wrote: post #350

matheusmoreira wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law could evaluate people as individuals instead of conjuring up some idiotic magic number.

The whole purpose of law is to be a uniform system of justice. At best it could offer guidelines for how to evaluate people: perhaps level of education attained, demonstrated ability to take responsibility for themselves, etc. But the evaluation under those guidelines would still have to be made by humans. There is precedent for such a system, e.g. minors can petition to be emancipated which allows them to be treated…

> perhaps level of education attained, demonstrated ability to take responsibility for themselves, etc.

Yes, that is what I meant. Choosing some arbitrary magic number like 18 and declaring that anyone under that age is too dumb or too irresponsible to decide is about as stupid as declaring that anyone over 65 is incapable of decision making because they might have Alzheimer's.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#388

Post by eigencoder » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

throwaway323929 wrote: post #373

musha68k wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Think of the kids!" OK but the impact of this technology shouldn't be underestimated and one doesn't only have to read up on the extreme ends. From personal experience, have you ever "chatted" with a model outside of technical/work related stuff? Both Anthropic as well as OpenAI models have been overstepping personal (user) boundaries for years now. There are multiple reasons for why Google hasn't capitalized on the…

They're absolutely doing this as a hedge against litigation, and given the trillion dollar lawsuits flying around, it's hard for me to blame them. Regulation by litigation rather than law creates ambiguous legal precedents that make it much harder to do business safely. That's why the most economically successful countries in the world tend to have the strongest rule of law. The actual root cause of this is our cultu…

I actually disagree, I think the problem is that heavy-handed companies have been dictating choices to us and our children, in contradiction to existing laws, and people are finally saying enough, these companies need to follow the laws.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#389

Post by Hizonner » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

mayhemducks wrote: post #195

Need we remind Anthropic of the 153 million drirvers licenses available for sale on the dark web thanks to a 3rd party ID verification service? https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/09/fbi-probes-service-selli... The fact that Anthropic only receives a result, not the data itself, does not make me feel any better about this. I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only. Leave the co…

> I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only. Leave the companies and governments out of it.

You do understand that in order to do that, something or somebody has (a) know that the person being decided about is a minor, (b) know who that minor's parents are, and (c) have some way to get input from the parents.

You get that, right? Right?

"Make it the parents' decision" doesn't solve the privacy problem. It's also probably wrong as a universal answer to anything; parents aren't infallible, incorruptible oracles.

Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years

#390

Post by thunderfork » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 3:19 PM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #360

lmc wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decent therapists advocate for cultivating resilience for such situations.

Decent physicians do the same: “And the next time you feel your heart going out of rhythm, just hold your breath, and remember I will see you again a couple of weeks from now.” Ah wait, no they don’t, because “resilience” is a worthless concept in emergencies, both mental and physical.

Decent physicians recommend exercise among other preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of emergencies.

Therapists will likewise encourage you to build up resilience so that "a relationship ended" is not a crisis, and also build support networks of real people who can really come visit you when you need urgent support.

There are also, of course, crisis hotlines.