I agree with you in general, I think the problem is that people who do understand Gen AI (and who understand what it is and isn’t capable of, and why), get rationally angry when it’s humanized by using words like these to describe what it’s doing.

The reason they get angry is because this makes people who do believe in the “intelligence/sapience” of AI more secure in their belief set and harder to talk to in a meaningful way. It enables them to keep up the fantasy. Which of course helps the corps pushing it.

I didn’t. But I also can’t say I’ve been paying attention.

Honestly? It’ll probably be an amalgamation of different tech to do it. That’s at least part of the reason I’m not sure it should work. Using identity to certify age or age gate products in this way when so much data is being collected already about users kind of doesn’t make sense in and of itself. It either leads to a database of data that’s dangerous to store, or it leads to government entities using such services to spy on people. Or both.

If the data that’s already out there about me being collected by data brokers can’t prove what age I am (and it absolutely can even when it’s anonymized) then I suspect no other system by itself will work. Because really what were talking about here is four things.

1. Linking access to age verification.
2. Linking identity to age verification.
3. Anonymizing that data so the service/or anyone with access can’t store it or use it for anything other than age verification.
4. Verifying that the person who device/token/certificate/verified medium is linked to is the person using the device.

So, say you were to use the block chain method. And say the device was verified. How would I verify it’s me using the device (me being the person who certified their age via block chain or some other method). What prevents me from unlocking the device and handing it to my kid? What prevents my kid from using the device without my knowledge (circumventing the password etc).

That’s at least part of the reason Roblox want to use facial recognition to verify users. But how often are we doing that check? Once isn’t enough. It’s not a hard barrier to cross. And say it’s twice, three times. Once a week. Say you use AI generated pictures to bypass that. Then Roblox or the service they contract with for verification has to maintain a database and compare pictures to each other etc.

Databases can be hacked. That information can be stolen. And linked to driver’s licenses, used for reverse image searches etc. If you or your child has ever posted a picture to the internet etc that can be used against you or your kid. It could be used to verify further accounts outside your control etc.

Following this to it’s logical conclusion you’d need to use a combination of things. Something you have (yubikee or some kind of authenticator, ID, credit card). There’s nothing stopping a person from selling this with the account credentials.

Something you know (password, passphrase etc). The account credentials to be sold.

Something you can’t change about yourself (iris scan, fingerprint, voice clip, etc). The dangerous to store information that when leaked or breached would cause damage to the life of the user in question.

Someone somewhere is going to need to keep a record of that to prove you are you which means it can’t by design be anonymous. And it means that there’s a database and it there that’s dangerous to the users but had to be maintained for the purpose of authentication. And that’s why this doesn’t work.

There’s nothing to stop them selling that email address with cert.

GiGo.

My main concerns are mostly to do with the fact that Google in my experience has always had the benefit of enticing software and services that are extremely invasive but also very convenient (even if we remove IoT from the table for a moment). This is mostly due to how invasive Google Play Services is, and how invasive the Google app has been since the first iterations of Google Assistant (Google Now). I’m concerned that even those of us who have done what we can to turn off Gemini and not use Generative AI are still compromised regardless because big tech has a choke hold on the services we use.

So I suppose I’m trying to understand what the differences are in how these two types of technology compromise cyber security.

Pre-Generative AI, lots of companies had AI/Algorithmic tools that posed a risk to personal cyber security (Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri, MS’s Cortana etc).

Is the stance here that AI is more dangerous than those because of its black box nature, it’s poor guardrails, the fact that it’s a developing technology, or it’s unfettered access?

Also, do you think that the “popularity” of Google Gemini is because people were already indoctrinated into the Assistant ecosystem before it became Gemini, and Google already had a stranglehold on the search market so the integration of Gemini into those services isn’t seen as dangerous because people are already reliant and Google is a known brand rather than a new “startup”.

One of the articles I linked you to had not just Steam but other payment processors talking about it.

So are we talking about Steam making statements about why they refused to accept the game Horses on their platform, or are we talking about payment processors? Because the thread you started responding to me in is the one about payment processors and as a result that is the vein in which my responses have been directed. And since news outlets have been very outspoken about the likelihood that Horses was refused due to payment processors pressuring Steam to better adhere to their Terms for content sold, it was reasonable to assume that that’s what you meant.

If you would like to talk about Steam’s removal of other games, or you would like to talk about Horse’s rejection specifically, you’re going to have to say so.

Microsoft isn’t selling products on GitHub. They bought it to have control over open source projects and code.

Even if they were going to sell ad space that’s still not the same conversation as the one about payment processors. At best the only similarity might just be that MS might find porn content to be detrimental to their image. Because that’s the BS reason payment aggregators gave for not allowing porn content every time this has come up.

But MS has been disallowing nudity, pornography, and other adult content on their products and ad aggregation service for more than a decade now. So either this was house keeping, it was an afterthought, or someone complained. And considering just how little MS cares about the complaints of consumers and consumer groups normally, I doubt it’s the latter.

What you said and what you meant were two different things.

The wording of the OG comment original commenter’s absolutely lent itself to conspiracy theory level inference that it was steams fault.

They not only didn’t actually answer the questions I asked. They claimed “nobody is talking about it” which is demonstrably not true.

Further, they went out of their way to play what about blah, but didn’t give and explaination of how that related to the conversation being had or their original point.

Then you show up with language that could be taken one of two ways, and when I respond with proof from what I took from what you said “I now have reading comprehension problems” because you “didn’t mean” what they said in relation to payment processors (which only entered the conversation because one person who was not the OG commenter brought it up), and I continued the conversation in that vein.

So either you chose to answer me on the wrong part of the thread, or it’s your own fault you were misunderstood.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/mastercard-visa-backlash-adult-games-removed-online-stores-steam-itchio-ntwnfb

In the two weeks since announcing the letters sent to major payment providers including PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, video game marketplaces Itch.io and Steam have announced policy changes.

Steam, which has an estimated 132 million active monthly users, earlier this month removed an estimated hundreds of titles in response to pressure from payments processors.

https://exploringthegames.substack.com/p/why-steam-removed-nsfw-lgbtq-games

Recently, several NSFW and adult-only games were removed from Steam and Itch.io, not because Valve or Itch.io wanted to, but because payment processing companies, such as Visa and Mastercard told them to do so.

What started as an effort to remove something truly horrible ended up as censorship hurting innocent creators. While the intention may have been to pull illegal, immoral, or exploitive games, games that were removed were also just NSFW or adult only games. One of these games was VILE, and the first time I heard about this situation.

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-confirms-credit-card-companies-pressured-it-to-delist-certain-adult-games-from-steam/

“We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks,” said Valve. “As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store.”

Valve’s reaching out to devs impacted by the change “and issuing app credits should they have another game they’d like to distribute on Steam in the future.” Just, you know, so long as those games get the seal of approval from Valve’s payment processors, I suppose.

I said what I said. You decided my argument was something other than what it actually was. You decided to engage me about it in a bad faith argument. You’re fault not mine.

So, when pornhub had problems with payment processors it wasn’t pornhubs fault they had to remove content.

But when steam removes some content because payment processors won’t let them take payment for that content it’s steams fault. Have I got that right?

It died a long long time before this. The enshittification directly started back in the early 2000’s when one of the owners basically usurped the whole company. Which of course lead to mods quitting en masse. After that it went downhill and that downhill trend continued. Then it got bought out by the Israeli’s, and the AI art injection was them trying to prevent the site from going under.

Nothing about the site is what it was.

That’s a conspiracy theory with a whole heaping of whataboutism.

And the other guy who I blocked can suck my left nut. I blocked you because you added nothing at all to the conversation and I wasn’t interested in talking to you.

Tell me very specifically what that has to do with Steam?

Microsoft went and changed the TOS for GitHub intentionally to remove this content. Valve hasn’t made changes to the TOS to exclude sexual content. They specifically never allowed sexual content that included minors in sexual situations.

Those are not the same thing.

This smells suspiciously similar to the stuff affecting adult content on Steam, like Horses.

With this sentence you basically implied that Steam is removing or not allowing porn games.

You never in any of your comments mentioned payment processors. If that’s what you meant, that’s what you should have said.

You also claimed nobody was talking about it when literally everybody everywhere was talking about it when the news first dropped. So much so that Mastercard made a statement about it.

Again. This wasn’t on steam it was on the literally payment providers who forced the issue. If steam can’t accept payment for your game, of course they’re going to delist it. That’s not what he said. He said steam is trying to clear porn games.

They did elaborate though. They explained that the game had depictions of children with adults in sexual situations and the game developer removed one scene and paid some lip service about how they were just small adults. Steam didn’t buy into that and wouldn’t allow the game on the platform which is a reasonable take.

Would you like to give the names of specific other porn games involving children in sexual situations? I would like to see that list because I’m pretty sure it violates the law in several places.

You seem to be suggesting that Horses got treated differently for invalid or incomprehensible reasons and that isn’t true from literally every article I’ve seen reporting on the situation.

GOG is based out of Poland, and I’m sure Polish law absolutely does cover children in sexual situations in media.

But we also don’t know what the developer went on to change in the game since it was submitted to Steam with acception of the part highlighted by Steam specifically when they denied it.

This developer may have gone on to change several things that clear the bar in Poland but not everywhere else.

In any case you speculated that Steam might be trying to clear porn games from the platform in your initial comment (or inferred such) and one game doesn’t validate that claim.

Go on then. Talk about it. Which other games besides Horses (the feature adult content) have been removed from or not allowed to launch on Steam? Because that platform is full of porn games and the Horses thing was about sexual themes involving minors.