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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
by embedding-shape 24d ago
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 approach
Claude Executive: And we hardly have any users younger than 18 anyway, go for it!
- drngdds 24d agoI don't think "we hardly know who our users are" is a problem any AI company is having lol
- wangxili1997 24d agoThe parody is funny, but in reality, it's almost certainly the reverse: the legal department terrified of regulatory exposure, not marketing looking for IDs. Laws like COPPA in the US, the UK Age Appropriate Design Code, and EU GDPR carry statutory penalties of over $50,000 per violation if minor data or chat sessions are mishandled without explicit parental consent. For an enterprise and developer-focused company like Anthropic, minors contribute negligible revenue while representing 90% of the catastrophic regulatory risk. From a pure cost-benefit perspective, outsourcing age verification to an external vendor and shutting down the under-18 demographic is simply the cheapest way to wipe that liability off their books.
- dkersten 24d ago> if minor data or chat sessions are mishandled without explicit parental consent I know this isn't what you meant, but I can't help but laugh at the thought of a parent consenting: "I consent to the mishandling of my child's data" As to your actual point, yes, I assume they are trying to reduce liability, especially if they're gearing up to an IPO.
- stingraycharles 24d agoYeah I don’t think Anthropic is particularly interested in tracking individuals in the same way that companies like Facebook and Google are.
- embedding-shape 24d agoI understand giving the benefit of the doubt to individual humans, we're all trying to do our best given our circumstances and contexts. But for the life of me I'll never understand why people extend this very human idea to faceless for-profit companies that time and time make it evident only one thing matters to them, money. If it can make them more money, they'll do it that way.
- chrisjj 24d agoBecause Anthropic would never sell ad space. Promise. /s
- iamgopal 24d agoYou missed Prompt engineering in betweeen.
- cyanydeez 24d agonone of this is about knowing their customer; I find is bizarre people think knowing a single boolean about 18 years of age provides anything they're not getting by finger printing your browser and sharing that fingerprint with an ad network. This is about reducing liability and making everyone else responsible for their inability to manage their community.
- embedding-shape 24d ago> I find is bizarre people think knowing a single boolean about 18 years of age provides anything You're hopelessly naive if you think this is all they get out of it.
- azan_ 24d agoYou are naive if you think they can’t infer almost everything about median user already.
- duskdozer 24d agoWhy would they need to do ID checks then?
- azan_ 24d agoLiability
- embedding-shape 24d agoThey certainly can't infer my full name and address from what I've used Claude for in the past, but if I'm forced to hand over my ID and I do, then they would.
- password54321 24d agoHaven't they reported "anonymous" users before to the police?
- password54321 24d ago>Damn, we hardly know who our users are No, they know who you are. 1 in 3 already use AI for mental health advice among many other things.
- abirch 24d agoI would say misuse AI for mental health advice. It's already difficult to find good mental health professionals.
- fn-mote 24d agoThose two sentences seem to be a non-sequitor. Unavailability is one reason people would turn to AI. Ease of access is another.
- simonwsimonw 24d ago[dead]
- Cthulhu_ 24d agoExactly why people turn to AI, which I think is good enough for "casual" mental health advice (the kind people can do themselves by reading self-help books or talking with empathic friends). Arguably it's safer than talking to strangers online because now that they've been doing it for a few years, they will (or should) have plenty of safeguards, unlike people on the internet who can talk out of their ass (like me!) and give bad advice. In theory the LLM will escalate or recommend professional help if they're out of their depth.
- newswasboring 24d ago> In theory the LLM will escalate or recommend professional help if they're out of their depth. LLMs can barely identify gaps in their own software designs, and they are provably good at making software.
- 24d ago
- Cthulhu_ 24d agoAge 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.
- phyzix5761 24d agoBank? So now you know what bank they use?
- miki123211 24d agoThis is why you have a relay in the middle. Then, Chase knows you've verified your ID somewhere, the relay knows that some Chase user verified themselves at Pornhub, and Pornhub knows that the user is over 18, without knowing their identity or what bank they're using. You could also do this with ZKPs and device integrity protection. The latter is more secure but more complex, the former is much simpler and openness friendly.
- deaton 24d agoOr we could use multiple relays so nobody knows both the bank and the purpose, or even who would know the other piece of data... and now thats just Tor but for identity verification. Might be a good idea actually, except the whole point is Anthropic wants to know who you are.
- AnthonyMouse 24d ago> You could also do this with ZKPs and device integrity protection. How has the anti-competitive lock-in scam of "device integrity protection" entered the discussion? Using ZK proofs without it has exactly the same effect. There are far too many attestation-passing insecure devices to expect attestation to have any security value against attackers who can choose any of those devices on purpose.
- piaste 20d ago
- TZubiri 24d agoThis 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 any parent with a child, it goes the other way, but with a slightly different mechanic. There is an effect on the adult, but it is so minor compared to the effect on children, that the proportionality causes you to dismiss the minor inconvenience it poses to adults, since you are focusing on the question of what happens to children. Nothing wrong with being (very) selfish though, just pointing out the dynamic.
- jscott0918 24d ago*parent post edited and elaborated while I was writing my reply Can you elaborate? I do have children, and I don't view it as any platforms job to police their Internet usage. I appreciate parental controls, but if they have Internet access it's my job to teach them to use services safely and keep an eye on their activities
- choo-t 24d ago> For any parent with a child, it goes the other way, but with a slightly different mechanic. There is an effect on the adult, but it is so minor compared to the effect on children, that the proportionality causes you to dismiss the minor inconvenience it poses to adults, since you are focusing on the question of what happens to children. Can you fathom that childhood is only tiny part of everyone life, and negative impacts on adults are, mathematically, bigger in anyone's life than same impact on children? It get even tinier if you factor that the slice of life were someone is old enough to use Claude, willing to do so and minor at the same time is really small. Even more if you try to articulate how Claude could be more harmful to an educated minor than any other activities.
- anon1097 24d agoSure, but for all that short duration, childhood age is foundational and happens to effectively guide just about everything that follows;p
- vova_hn2 24d ago> And we hardly have any users younger than 18 anyway, go for it! I doubt that this statement is true.
- embedding-shape 24d agoIf it wasn't true before, it'll certainly appear to be true to Anthropic after this change, regardless if it's actually true or not in practice.
- groundzeros2015 24d agoPaying customers?
- icedchai 24d agoI'm sure many use their parents' credit card. In which case, the parent would do the "verification" and the minor uses the account anyway.
- hobofan 24d agoI'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.
- miki123211 24d agoIf you have an ineffective system for preventing a thing from happening, but one where the "victim" has to override the system, the victim is at fault. Your honor, the user manual in the box did say "don't put children in the microwave."
- tt24 24d agoSo in your example a microwave company should be held liable if someone puts a child in a microwave?
- nprateem 24d ago> Claude Executive: And we hardly have any users younger than 18 anyway, go for it! LOL. Yeah kids have loved homework and writing essays since forever
- Anon1096 24d agoLiterally every single HN thread these days mentioning big companies the top comment is some cynical conspiratorial nonsense. Say Big Tech is out to get you in any way possible no matter how outlandish and people eat it up. Nothing can just happen for good or neutral reasons it's always tied to some master plan.
- FpUser 24d agothere is no smoke without fire
- brookst 24d ago“Suspicion is the same as fact”
- afpx 24d agoSome people are just better pattern matchers
- brookst 24d agoThat’s pretty much the heart of conspiracy theories and paranoia, yes. See apophenia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
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- dns_snek 24d agoYes, except these kinds of fears related to big tech/surveillance end up being true more often than not. Unsurprising given the profit incentives and the total lack of ethics in the industry. 10+ years ago you were considered a lunatic if you told people that putting internet-connected cameras and microphones everywhere is a bad idea because their TV would be used to spy on them, that their cameras would be accessed by the police without their consent for surveillance, or that car company employees would watch them walk around naked through the cameras on their car.
- rixrax 24d agoAnd surely cannot trust credit card details alone. Instead let's do age verification on top of CC just in case.
- mikeocool 24d agoGiven this feature seems to be premised off guessing a user’s age based on their inputs, and a common use case for Claude it uploading personal legal and tax documents to have Claude explain them to you, I am guessing Anthropic is not hurting for data about their customers. Seems more likely this is designed to stave off similar laws /regulations to what the social media platforms are now being hit with, and moving liability from Anthropic to parents. If dad lets kid use his Claude account for a school project, and Claude ends up telling the kid to hurt himself, it’s now dad’s fault.
- brookst 24d agoAnd really the only upside to minor accounts is building loyalty, which is not nothing but also not the same as a paying customer. Easy to see how Anthropic could decide it’s not with the exposure to liability and regulatory actions.
- torginus 24d agoI think they are combating distillation and token resellers (there's a nonzero overlap)
- sam-cop-vimes 24d agoThis seems like a lazy snipe. They clearly state that they receive only an age verification result and none of the personal data. It would take collusion from both sides to silently enable transfer of user data while publicly stating that they don't. I have used these KYC services before. There is the option to get access to all user data - but unless there is evidence to the contrary, we have to take their word for it, for now.
- DarmokTanagra 24d ago[dead]
- skrebbel 24d agoNo fucking way I’m sending my biometric data to some sleazy foreign company I know nothing about. The fact that “Yoti” is separate from Anthropic doesnt suddenly make this less gross.
- skinfaxi 24d agoWasn't there a purported breach of a huge KYC service, idscan recently? https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fbi-investigates-massive-breach-exposing-153-million-drivers-licenses-090826.html https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fbi-investigates-massiv...
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- iAMkenough 24d ago
- bdangubic 24d ago> Claude Executive: And we hardly have any users younger than 18 anyway, go for it! Every middle schooler in high schooler in America is snickering right now... :)
- gsquaredxc 24d agoEven better: All of the under 18 users are probably on the free plan. It’s fairly likely that this demographic is disproportionately expensive.
- deleted 24d ago[deleted]
- cindyllm 24d ago[dead]
- groundzeros2015 24d agoThis is the same thought process behind 2fa. (And to externalize Google’s spam problem).
- alansaber 24d agoAge verification is the silver bullet for personal data collection. Open internet enthusiasts hate this one simple trick!
- nonethewiser 24d agoIt’s OK to age gate some services. Its not all a conspiracy to steal your data.
- Dlemlo 24d agoWhat do you think is written on my credit card and my bill from Anthropic? Do you really think most people use fake data on a paid service? I don't think so.
- ozgung 24d agoMore interesting dialogue was between the Claude Executive and a government official just before this one.
- Waterluvian 24d agoI'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 some sites post the most minimal amount of imagery that constitutes erotic nudity. That's why Google's graphic for the past few months has just been that one with the two dots in the middle of the o's."
- brycewray 24d agoReminiscent of this scene from the 1981 teen-slasher parody, Student Bodies: > Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, in order to achieve an "R" rating today, a motion picture must contain full frontal nudity, graphic violence, or an explicit reference to the sex act. Since this film has none of those, and since research has proven that R-rated films are by far the most popular with the moviegoing public, the producers of this motion picture have asked me to take this opportunity to say "Fuck you." > [the MPAA R-rating logo appears on the screen] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083133/quotes/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083133/quotes/
- jerf 24d agoTook a bit of poking, but: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgDQ5z7bNPs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgDQ5z7bNPs
- square_usual 24d agoIt's crazy that the top comment on HN these days is this kind of crackpot conspiracy thinking.
- hirvi74 24d agoSometimes I have to double-check the URL to make sure I am not on Reddit.
- Dylan16807 24d agoTrying to collect personal info might not be the motivation but it's not at all a crackpot theory. And what's the conspiracy aspect of calling a big company a liar? Your dismissal is so much weaker than the post you're replying to.
- Barrin92 23d ago>And what's the conspiracy aspect of calling a big company a liar? the conspiracy aspect is alleging a conspiracy without providing any evidence, which is apparently how 90% of people function now. Calling someone a liar because you invented a conversation in your head isn't entirely sane
- Dylan16807 23d ago> the conspiracy aspect is alleging a conspiracy without providing any evidence Nobody alleged a conspiracy. > Calling someone a liar because you invented a conversation in your head isn't entirely sane That's not why they said that. This is a ridiculous criticism of OP.
- 00deadbeef 24d agoBefore writing this did you read the part where it says you don’t even need ID?
- kmoser 24d agoDo you mean the part where it says they use signals to determine your age?
- againstapples 24d agoWhat would be gained with government id that would make this worthwhile? If people are already putting all their personal details into the LLM as well as all their work, do they really need id to know who someone is? Seems more likely they just want to avoid liability from all the child suicides?
- ajkjk 24d agoYes, it must be a sinister act of manipulation and not what it appears to be on the tin.
- trunnell 24d agoI can tell you don't know anyone at Anthropic.
- putlake 24d agoFrom TFA: Yoti is an independently audited age verification provider for SOC2 compliance. Your selfie, document images, and any personal data are deleted by Yoti as soon as your age is checked. Anthropic never sees your ID or image; we receive only a pass/fail result and do not process or store any personal data from the verification.
- badgersnake 24d agoIf you believe that you’ll buy my NFT.
- dawnerd 23d agoDidn’t that id verification service that just had the massive breach also say similar about data retention? Doesn’t matter if they delete if the data is being intercepted somewhere along the line.
- what 23d agoDon’t care. Will not provide them with my documents either. So will not be using anthropic services.
- chrisjj 24d agoClaude Executive: Damn, schools are moving to teach the ill effects of our fake AI. How can we stop that? Claude Product Manager: Give me 2sec...
- jonas21 24d agoMore likely, this is being done to comply with SB 1119 (Adam's Law) [1,2] and similar legislation. These create extra steps that a service has to go through before releasing a new model that minors can interact with and exposes them to prosecution if a minor is harmed or harms someone else due to their interaction with a chatbot. It's safer for Anthropic to just exclude minors -- and they're unlikely to be paying customers anyway. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1119 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... [2] https://sd18.senate.ca.gov/news/governor-newsom-signs-adams-law https://sd18.senate.ca.gov/news/governor-newsom-signs-adams-...
- tangotaylor 24d agoThank you, I'm glad someone brought up SB 1119. I hate it. California already has BPC §§ 22601-22606 to protect people from chatbots encouraging self-harm and I don't see a legitimate reason why they had to ratchet up the restrictions. This law seems a blatant regulatory capture grift by OpenAI to calcify their teen mode into law and hurt competitors. https://openai.com/index/supporting-california-bill-advance-ai-youth-safety/ https://openai.com/index/supporting-california-bill-advance-...
- benbojangles 24d agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLM/comments/1v6mgbs/comment/ozvcl76/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLM/comments/1v6mgbs/comment/o...
- surcap526 24d ago[dead]
- notesinthefield 24d agoYou always take the written policy win over thoughtful technical controls. Way easier for the whole org.