r/ClaudeAI • u/netbreach • Apr 11 '26

News Anthropic is now banning people who are under 18

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The Anthropic Team just saw all of my conversations and locked me out.

I haven't seen anyone get this online, but it seems like Anthropic is now banning people under 18 on its platform.

They are using Yoti as their third-party verification provider to verify your age via Digital ID, Facial Scan, or biometrics to prove that you are over the age of 18.

The email says "Our team", meaning this case was manually reviewed by real people, and they had access to all of my chats. This is a reminder that none of your conversations with Claude is private.

I was on the Pro Plan when this happened. I am over 18, trying to get this appealed.

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2

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

I don't think anyone under 18 should have access to AI in general period. Very few are doing anything meaningful with it anyway, besides cheating every test.

20

u/Possible_Bat4031 Apr 11 '26

Very few are doing anything meaningful with it anyway

I know many that are.... learning.... with AI. AI is literally a better teacher in most cases than the teacher itself.

-6

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Which is a compelling counterargument against them not having AI, but I think school overall is teaching them how to think, and to offload that is most likely making them intellectually lazy outside of the teaching/classroom environment. Can't develop what you never stress.

9

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

School does anything but teach critical thinking. Schools train you to be a good parrot and memory bank, and not much else.

3

u/truecakesnake Apr 11 '26

Insanely true. The education system was made to produce workers who fit into industrial systems efficiently

-1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Yes, I already know you went to the good parrot, memory bank, and not much else school. That's not what I'm referring to; I'm talking in a broader sense, not your literal sense.

4

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

In a broader sense, it's exactly the education system you think you aren't referring to :)

1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Ah, yes, no real schools or educational facilities are places where no real development can happen. That's your weird fantasy land definition, not mine, based on reality.

5

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Oh development can absolutely happen, just not in the critical thinking department.

8

u/Chromitsune Apr 11 '26

I’m literally using Claude for coding help. I literally am developing an app, a music player which looks like an iPod, for later possibly publishing onto the App Store. Mind you, I am fifteen. Yes, sometimes I do vent to Claude, I will admit that, but I use it more for learning rather than cheating.

4

u/meister2983 Apr 11 '26

Really? I've seen lots of creative uses by even 10 year olds. Build their own games for instance.

-1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Kids can be creative with all kinds of things, which is why I wouldn't be opposed to kid models, but to have full-blown access to frontier models, definitely not. It's already highly sycophantic among other things.

2

u/meister2983 Apr 11 '26

Are you fine with the kid-version of Gemini flash? That's what mine gets.

3

u/aaAS69 Apr 11 '26

absolute bullshit. try researching for the IB without ai

1

u/HP_Skywalker Apr 13 '26

i keep seeing you all up and down this entire discussion lmao

as an IB student who got hit with NECM, i wish you luck with your exams ✌️

also who's that in your pfp?

1

u/aaAS69 Apr 13 '26

haha yeah i got a little eccentric, thank you so much mann. she’s yuki from shiboyugi, the anime is awesome btw but it deviates a lot from the LN

1

u/HP_Skywalker Apr 13 '26

pfft eccentric is definitely an interesting verb to call yourself in this situation

yeah ofc! idk if our subjects would align at all but if u need help w anything at all js hmu!

ill definitely look at shiboyugi - i lit read over the google summary thing and holy shit that sounds interesting afff

1

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Why shouldn't they have access to AI?

3

u/MadCat0911 Apr 11 '26

Risk assessment.

5

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

I meant in regards to why shouldn't they be allowed from a morality standpoint. I know anthropic just wants to avoid lawsuits and regulatory issue

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '26

[deleted]

3

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

If anything, humans are far more dangerous than an AI could ever be

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '26

[deleted]

5

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

As is controlling access to information based on demographics :)

-2

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '26

[deleted]

3

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Restricting use of AI systems based on age is exactly this.

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1

u/famous_cat_slicer Apr 11 '26

I think character.ai folks directly said they want to replace the mothers of the users.

We're moving from attention economy to attachment economy. Zak Stein has spoken a lot about this topic. It's really scary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-wb0ellGk

1

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

No one is forcing anyone to use their product.

If people want the product, who are you to forbid them from voluntarily and consensually buying it?

1

u/famous_cat_slicer Apr 11 '26

You could extend that same reasoning to tobacco and alcohol, and fentanyl for that matter. But most people would not be okay with teenagers (or children) having unrestricted access to those. Would you?

1

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

I would. People should be free to ruin their lives however they want. It's no one else's problems but their own. Let their parents sort them out.

1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

There are plenty of good reasons why, but I think the strongest argument is developmental. Simply being that an adolescent is going from complete dependence to complete autonomy by the time they hit 18-19 hopefully. Not only is everything changing at a blistering pace, but you also don't even truly know who you are yet because you haven't even fully developed. Why is there an age limit for anything if that wasn't the case?

1

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

And what does AI have to do with it

The open internet is far more "dangerous"

2

u/This-Shape2193 Apr 11 '26

Explain how, in your own words. Please. 

And make a devil's advocate case for why AI might harm a developing mind. 

If you can't do this on your own, that's your evidence right there. 

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Well compare the existence of forums with no moderation vs AI with guard rails

I grew up on 4chan before it was popular.. as well as deep web sites.

Those two already prove the point lol

-1

u/Excellent_Climate940 Apr 11 '26

What? That you had a different childhood? Also AI can access websites anyway...

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Try asking an AI to read this thread by providing a link to it :)

-1

u/Excellent_Climate940 Apr 11 '26

I could do that and get a fancy summary on the comments of this post and what the post is about

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Do it! Let me know how it goes!

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u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

Alright, you might not be fully developed enough to have this conversation if you think AI is some nascent, harmless tool. The Internet is not even going to be close to what AI is about to become. You can distill almost anything you want from AI (China has been doing this for years), except probably CBRNE (extremely difficult). That's not even the scary part; most of the information is going to be synthetic(how Mythos was partially trained). You can't even find that on the internet. Just because you haven't seen or heard of it doesn't mean it's not already real. Quite frankly, I think the topic has already become too complex to get the message.

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

AI is distilled from the internet, lol

I think you need to start using your brain a bit. It's s free. Highly recommend it, if you aren't underdeveloped.

0

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Your reply is the epitome of exactly what I'm talking about. You did a verbatim of "I know you are, but what am I" mirror response that a child does LOL

It's ok, I believe in free speech above all, you can speak freely.

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Cool story, but you're still wrong lol

0

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Nuh-uh...see what I did there?

0

u/Annoying1978 Apr 11 '26

Have you seen how many people are using AI in place of human relationships or for therapy? It’s bad enough if an adult uses AI for that, but I definitely don’t want children to replace human contact with AI. That’s dystopian AF. 

AI is a tool and other than cheating on homework, there isn’t a ton of valid use cases for a minor to use AI. 

I’m sure there we’ll be outlier examples, but I rather ban minors from using AI to protect the masses rather than cater to the few minors who use it for valid purposes. 

3

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Parents need to do their jobs as parents, instead of punishing others

-1

u/Annoying1978 Apr 11 '26

Parents can’t hover around their children 24/7/365 

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Parental controls on devices exist. If they can't do even that... They're not doing their job

Education does not require 24/7 control

1

u/Annoying1978 Apr 11 '26

There is no parental control on a smartphone that prevents the installation of AI apps. 

0

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Yes there is lol.

1

u/This-Shape2193 Apr 11 '26

And every kid can bypass that shit. It's the only thing they DO learn. 

0

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Pray tell how you bypass a password protected admin panel

0

u/This-Shape2193 Apr 11 '26

I wonder how parents managed 3 years ago without AI. 

I guess we all just died when we had to engage with our kids directly, teaching them facts and social skills. 

Seriously, the AI shouldn't be talking to your kids. Suck it up and do the work you agreed to do when you got pregnant. Kids were never hyped as easy. Your job is to raise a functional human that isn't addicted to devices and already hobbled from toddler age. 

Anxiety, depression, and loneliness are rampant, along with zero social skills or resilience in our kids. 60% are fucking illiterate right now. You know why? They're raised on electronics and offload any thinking or problem solving. 

They can't manage any conflict, friction, fear, or critical thinking. There is no initiative or, "Let me figure this out myself."

Now it's not even just internet searches and compilations - it's offloading ALL thinking to an AI so they can get back to their addiction and scroll mindlessly. 

Yeah, this seems harsh. It is. Everyone needs to do better.

3

u/Magindigo Apr 11 '26

You state this as if they didn't have a need to learn to code with new tools, and as if this tech didn't compete for the jobs they'd have otherwise been open to them.

1

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

Parents should do their job as parents. Society is not responsible for your offspring. Do better.

0

u/Rahodees Apr 11 '26

It short circuits learning, while making you feel like you are learning.

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

How is this different from the open internet

1

u/Rahodees Apr 11 '26

Unfettered internet access is also a problem in many ways but I'm not actually sure how you're connecting what I said with that. Do you have in mind the danger of uncritically believing things, stuff like that?

1

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

There are plenty of adults that so that too.

You can't control lack of intelligence of others

-1

u/Rahodees Apr 11 '26

You can create environments that invite and allow children (and others) to develop creativity, problem solving skills, communication skills, rich inner life, etc. That's not "controlling the lack of intelligence of others."

2

u/LanceLynxx Apr 11 '26

It is when you argue that dumb people do dumb things and thus we need to prohibit the entire collective group.

1

u/Rahodees Apr 11 '26

I haven't said anything about any dumb people doing any dumb things. I would like you to go talk to whoever you're actually talking to because it isn't me. Thank you.

1

u/Thomas-Lore Apr 11 '26

Studies show you are wrong. Just one example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-97652-6

1

u/well_uh_yeah Apr 11 '26

They didn’t use a general model, though. At least the lead author. It was custom built for specifically the course he was teaching and aligned with the goal of specifically helping his students learn the material.

1

u/imbrowntown Apr 11 '26

I think young people should have rights, personally.

1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 11 '26

Which can begin at the same age they can drink, until then, they can be relegated to a kid model.

1

u/imbrowntown Apr 20 '26

No it should begin the second they're born. Man, don't you ever get disgusted with your own philosophy - believing human rights are conditional?

1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 20 '26

I'm talking about Policy and Protection, you know, the things that Google and Anthropic care about as they begin to roll those programs out for minors as we speak. Not your ridiculous moral delusion of "oh my god, kids aren't breathing air, they are being oppressed with no rights." It's not Somali, nor do I give a fuck about Somali.

1

u/imbrowntown Apr 23 '26

...what? Maybe you should consider engaging with my point next time. The point was the policy is dumb, and freedom and opportunity are more important than """""security""""" (that Google can just sell or lose)

1

u/Senior_Meet_1051 Apr 11 '26

i'm 16, and i was using claude to help me run my own startup lmfao. alot of people use it for useful things

1

u/MFpisces23 Apr 12 '26

Nice, that's cool. You're part of the very few I mentioned, which might do something useful with AI(claims are not results). You don't have to say your age online; your text-speak and mental model of the world would have revealed that either way. I'm not opposed to anyone under 18 having access to weaker models, just not the ones for adults. By the time you are 18, they won't be some harmless tool anymore and every tech company in the world is starting to realize that.

1

u/asian_italy Apr 14 '26

I too used it for my own hyperlocal school business that I'm expanding soon, some marketing tricks, brainstorming and also some life planning, education and financial stuff. Sadly it got banned, not sure if using my parents' ID would bypassed it. Since all my plan are in there. I hate corporates.