[Jonovono]

For some reason ChatGPT has suddenly started thinking i'm a teen. Every answer it starts out "Since you are a teen I will..." and prompts me to upload an ID to show my age. I'm 35.

[jayelem]

OpenAI demanded I prove my age in November 2025. I’m an educated 50 year old and had been paying for the service for over a year. When they insisted I prove my age I went through two layers of support but got nowhere. They insisted I go through their verification process. I refused and cancelled my subscription. This may be a losing battle but I’m not going to upload a photo to these services.

[csomar]

I don't get it. They're doing everything they can to create roadblocks to adoption. They don't accept prepaid cards, they restrict certain models behind extended verification processes and the list goes on. They got a lucky head-start and seem to have assumed they've built some impenetrable moat.

[samename]

Does OpenAI have an incentive to get age prediction "wrong" so that more people "verify" their ages by uploading an ID or scanning their face, allowing "OpenAI" to collect more demographic data just in time to enable ads?

[BatteryMountain]

YES. They all do. Everyone is dripping to get their hands on your biometric data and medical info.

[Hoasi]

Maybe they should start scanning users' irises.

[jacquesm]

Absolutely. Profile building.

[renewiltord]

Oh yes. In fact, I read on Reddit that they have secret project to use Worldcoin.

[aargh_aargh]

> simple way to confirm their age and restore their full access with a selfie through Persona, a secure identity-verification service

The normalization of identity verification to use internet services is itself a problem. It's described much better than I could by EFF here:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/so-youve-hit-age-gate-...

[owisd]

The EFF are fighting a losing battle:

> we hope we’ll win in getting existing ones overturned and new ones prevented.

All the momentum is in the other direction and not slowing down. There are valid privacy concerns, but, buried in this very article, the EFF admit that it’s possible to do age-gating in a privacy-preserving way:

> it’s possible to only reveal your age information when you use a digital ID. If you’re given that choice, it can be a good privacy-preserving option

If they want to take a realistic approach to age-gating they should be campaigning to make this approach only option.

[sunrunner]

"How do you do, fellow kids? Err...skibidi toilet?" That should work, it's at least three years old now I think?

[TimByte]

And once a system starts making probabilistic guesses about who you are, the burden flips onto the user to disprove it

[keeda]

Flattery is a form of sycophancy ;-)

[loloquwowndueo]

Forever young, my dude. Forever young.

[Jonovono]

Haha ya I asked my my younger brother if he’s gotten it and he said he didn’t. I’m like alright I must give off youthful vibes ;)