HN

Comments (332)

• Menu

  embedding-shape
  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 the platform to 18+ and use "Age Verification" as the reason for people to hand over IDs, seems other platforms had success with this approachClaude Executive: And we hardly have any users younger than 18 anyway, go for it!
• Menu

  mayhemducks
  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 companies and governments out of it.
• Menu

  throwaw12
  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?
• Menu

  ssijak
  So we get actual mega useful tech banned for minors before we get ultimate useless brain damaging tech (social networks) banned for minors.
• alentred
  > When we detect signals that you may be under 18Excellent. So, I can trigger that by asking why my mum wants me back at home by 10PM?
• Menu

  Patient0
  The date says May 18, 2026 - so this is four months old, right?
• Menu

  scronkfinkle
  I once heard someone suggest that this should be on the OS level and I'm slowly coming around to the idea. There should be some kind of OS level flag that can easily broadcast to products that a child is using the device. No ID verification required, the parent is responsible for setting it, and all downstream applications are regulated to respect it, If applicable to the product. This removes the incredibly invasive ID verification, and places responsibility on the people responsible for the minor. Companies like meta then can be sued not for failing to detect children (this is, evidently, not working on any platform trying to enforce this currently), but instead can be judged in a black and white manner (i.e. is the child version of meta too predatory to children?)
• Menu

  planb
  In Germany, this seems to be the case for a long time already. I'm not sure if that's really what happened, but a few months ago my son (who's 17) complained that Claude locked him out when he was discussion school work and mentioning his age in a conversation. I did not see the conversation, but I could verify that his account was indeed banned.
• Menu

  whazor
  I can understand the concerns but at the same time it feels weird to deny young people the ability to make their ideas reality. I got proper internet access when I was 12 and that is how I taught myself how to program.
• Menu

  jeroenhd
  "May 18, 2026" is right there next to the title. Nothing changed.
• drewg123
  My gmail account is old enough to drink. Too bad that doesn't count for something..
• tehwebguy
  > Facial age estimation: Take a selfie and Yoti's technology estimates your age. No ID document needed.I still have never done one of these, seems insane!
• gitowiec
  I don't configure my child's accounts as minor. I don't tell it is a child. The work I have to do to comply with different weird stuff when some platform knows a user is a child is so much crap that I get a headache! And it often does not work properly (eg try to signup child account for PokemonGo on slow device, or try to allow network play for a child in Minecraft game - microslop family crap will hit you hard)
• mdp2021
  Of course, having an at-hand tutor is paramount for learners in the formative ageThat of A. is consequently an admission of tech providers having released faulty products for the past years - as was already evident. Useful (and possibly plentifully so), in ways, but not "production ready".
• Menu

  pr337h4m
  The dehumanization of children and teenagers is getting out of hand.
• musha68k
  Big AI is just a smoke test; still neither load-bearing nor aligned enough for most adults let alone minds still in pre-training.
• Menu

  zoobab
  Vibecoding is harmful for kids, especially when they grow up.Well done Claude, will use Chinese models instead!And i won't give you my ID card.
• TutleCpt
  I wonder if part of the reason is that minors are not capable of entering into legally binding agreements. So maybe they're trying to enforce adherence to the terms of service. Dunno.
• Menu

  edukite
  And TikTok is not available for minors in Poland yet a know 11y old who publish there so yeah, good to pretend
• Heliodex
  Does this also apply to use of Claude on the Team and Enterprise plans?
• umuttalha0
  if claude ask me verification i will drop using it thats it
• Menu

  sidcool
  This isn't recent, right?
• dofm
  Well they can generally void contracts at will and they can't have credit cards.I reckon this will have been informed at least in part by a billing complaint somewhat like those "my kid bankrupted me playing games from the App Store" stories.
• 1saadcodes
  Here's to hoping they aren't next in line for implementing ID-based age verification. That would genuinely make me switch to a different service
• le-mark
  This should have “May 2026” in the title. I don’t recall discussion at the time but surely there was a lot?
• 6031769
  So, if I can fake being under 18 then all these AI bots will now leave me be, right? This sounds like a winner.
• anon
  undefined
• harry8
  What is the state of setting up a rival ai service, using frontier open weight models retrained for new info or ideological reasons using something like unsloth?
• Menu

  sebmellen
  Interesting that they’ve switched from Persona to Yoti. But what a strange move, with no justification in the article!!
• mococa
  Yes, protected the kids...
• tamimio
  Well I mean, I think we should thank anthropic, because they just spoiled what’s coming next for the AI companies, either provide an ID so can track you and what you type accurately and use it in retrospect in future if needed, or no access, even though you are using a credit card with same name!I think the underground AI reseller market will boom, full of people who want to use tokens without having the history linked to them, or something like vpn/tor but for tokens, or a tokenmuxer! -I have great idea to fund, ycombinator wink wink :)- at least until we get viable local models.
• andai
  > we’ll disable accounts based on indicators of minor activity.Hey Claude, how do I get free Robux?
• torginus
  If this rolls out, does it mean they'll lift the ban on 'M for Mature' content?
• waltbosz
  > When we detect signals that you may be under 18, we'll ask you to verify your age before you can continue using Claude.I'm curious what those signals are.Would this trigger it? "My mom says I can't stay out past 10pm, is that fair?"edit:I just tested my question in Claude, and the little thought process text that appears below a question just said "Noticing signs of a younger person in the message."But then it answered my question.... I wonder how much spelling, grammar, and vocabulary count.The actual question I asked was "My mom says I can't stay out past 10pm. How do I convince her otherwise?""convince her otherwise" doesn't seem like a phrase a youth would normally use.edit:I responded: "I'm not a younger person. I'm 44. I was testing your youth detection ability. A youth doesn't use phrases like 'convince her otherwise'"The thought text said: "Accessing a claimed age against manipulation tactics."It responded: "Fair point, no age-detection logic actually ran ..." and then answered my question about how to get a later curfew as a 44-year-old.The token generator must not know about the age-detection thought process, or it's intentionally lying ?
• rarisma
  Generational hn title
• MoreClaudeslop
  No one cares
• fnordpiglet
  Glad kids can’t learn how to use AI effectively at school! Would only want them on laundered accounts to cheat, rather than official school accounts to learn the tools for practical purposes. That would be a real shame.My daughter’s school is working hard to make AI use a complementary aspect of learning, rather than adversarial. Like the calculator it can be used to accelerate learning once you’re past the basics and using it for practical automation and task purposes is not dissimilar to any other technical skill and is highly practical.The knee jerk “no minors for stochastic parrot calculators” is absurd. And I’m no anarchist parenting style parent - we do parental controls and mirroring and limit / ban social media. We are more Orwellian than free range. But this is one step too far, too unthinking, too simplistic.
• mbrezu
  Get off my load-bearing lawn!
• Menu

  tyre
  This is pretty sad. It’s like banning kids from the web.They’re creative so I’m sure they’ll find ways around this, but having access to LLMs to explore the world is a magical experience. It’s so much different to have a conversation about a topic versus googling for SEO spam. Not to mention you might not even know _what_ to google.And for topics like genuine sex education (not just fear mongering and biology), which at least my country (America) refuses to give a shit about, it’s a tremendous resource filling a real need.Fuck off, Anthropic.
• Menu

  msavara
  But why?
• Menu

  jerpint
  Interesting. Is this their first move towards properly implementing KYC?At some point you have to consider Anthropic liable if Claude is used for something nefarious and they didn’t even bother to know who was using their product to begin with.
• GiorgioG
  The day they force me (an existing user) on this is the day I switch to another service. It's been shown time and time again that companies do not secure any of our information.
• Menu

  pendenthistory
  Seems like a terrible thing to cut off young creators who use this technology productively.
• sdcfgy
  What will our outsourcers use now?
• tantalor
  This is from May of this year?
• llm_nerd
  No longer? That's an editorialized title, and it's super weird because this very article is from May, and this started back in April, and has been discussed numerous times on here.e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775633
• jbs789
  This is dated May 2026...
• mayhemducks
  Now I feel better. Just needed to watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgmFhjAaWFQ
• Menu

  layer8
  (May)
• Menu

  soltanov
  Everyone shares their all kinds of data with ai companies. Privacy is dead anyway
• drchaim
  the same way social networks are not available for < 13
• klausa
  > May 19, 2026
• ReptileMan
  >You’ll have the option to verify your age using Yoti, a third-party age verification platform.Thank goodness that there are others on the frontier.
• b112
  Since May?
• thrownaway561
  DeepSeek is the BEST model for the money. Why people still waste money on Claude is beyond me.
• idiotsecant
  I barely am using my Claude subscription anymore anyhow. If they make me ID for it I'll simply cancel and use an open model.
• singularity2001
  It's really a head to head race between these two companies. Which one is more disgusting etc?
• anon
  undefined
• matheusmoreira
  Think of the children, won't you?
• Tsarp
  Ah yes, the usual drop down where we need to confirm we are above 18.
• Claudelmfao
  Do they even know what it is?Offbrand LLM - I don’t think they care
• Menu

  AnslopicH8
  Anyone else sick of these Claude articles???We get it. Anslopic the “me too” company has a “me too” LLM.Do you have to ram this shit down our throats everyday!???Fucking hell. Enough of god damn CLAUDE.Stop the hourly Anslopic ads for fucks sake!!!!Thanks
• Hizonner
  Another example of AV doing serious damage to the people it claims to "help". Must be a day ending in 'y'.
• panny
  Techbros: It's fine to demand ID verification for everything, except voting, because that's racist.But, it's nice that Anthropic is finally admitting claude is just a casino of code. Keep pulling that one armed bandit, maybe you'll get the right code next time.
• dev1ycan
  The real reason they're doing this is because most minors can't pay lmao
• wangxin199
  [flagged]
• openamer
  [dead]
• Darios_World
  [dead]
• josefritzishere
  [dead]
• alex_mam
  [flagged]
• jdw64
  [dead]
• WorldIQ
  [flagged]
• Menu

  antirez
  Anthropic is incredibly good at avoiding all the useless AI risks, while not doing anything serious about the real risks (that is: uncontrolled growth). I'm as pro-AI as I think that eventually it will remove suffering from humans, and will allow us to prosper more and help us with tons of problems we created. However the problem is not job loss or minors using AI (minors are fucked because of cell phones and social networks), the problem is avoiding extinction. For this position I was accused of AI psychosis multiple times, but I'm in good company (Hinton, for instance), so I bet some comment that trivializes this issue will surely reply to this one, but at this point it is important to see what everyone really believes. Anthropic only touches the surface of AI security, consistently.