Terms of Use — Mercurius AI

Agreeing to these terms

By downloading, opening, or using Mercurius AI ("Mercurius," "the app," "we," "us," or "our"), you agree to these Terms of Use and to our Privacy Policy, which is part of these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the app. If you're using Mercurius on behalf of a school, club, or other organization, you confirm you're allowed to accept these terms for it.

Who can use it

You must be 13 or older. Mercurius is built for teens aged 13 to 18. If you are under 13, you may not use the app. Starting with app version 2.3, the app asks how old you are the first time you open it and shows a stop screen instead of the tutor if you pick an age under 13. The device stays on that screen for 7 days, and there is no way to go back and pick again. The device keeps only the time of the stop. Your age is only checked on your device and is never saved or sent to us.

If you are 13 to 17, you should have a parent's or guardian's permission to use Mercurius. We suggest reading this page and the Privacy Policy together.

Mercurius does not require an account and does not ask for personal details. See the Privacy Policy for exactly what is and isn't collected.

What Mercurius is — and isn't

Mercurius is an educational tool. It's an AI literacy tutor that helps you understand and think critically about artificial intelligence. Its replies are generated by an AI language model (Anthropic's Claude), guided by a tutoring system prompt written by us.

It is not a substitute for a real person. Mercurius is for learning and general information only. It is not a counselor, a doctor, a lawyer, or a therapist, and it does not replace one. Don't rely on it for decisions about your health, your safety, your money, or the law. If something matters, ask a real expert.

If you are in crisis, get real help. Mercurius is instructed to point you to people who can actually help. In the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or text 741741. Both are free and open 24 hours a day.

About the AI's answers

The whole point of Mercurius is to make you a sharper judge of AI, so we hold the app to the same standard we teach:

AI can be wrong. Language models sometimes produce confident statements that are inaccurate, outdated, or entirely made up. Treat Mercurius's answers as a starting point, not a final authority.
It is told to say when it is unsure. Mercurius is instructed to tell you when it isn't confident, and to have you check claims against a real source before you use them. It will not always get this right, which is exactly why you should check.
Verify what matters. For anything you'll act on or hand in, confirm it against a primary or authoritative source. Mercurius is built to encourage exactly this habit.
You decide how to use the output. You're responsible for what you do with the replies Mercurius generates.

Using it responsibly

When you use Mercurius, you agree not to:

Harass or harm anyone. No using the app to bully, threaten, or demean another person, or to make content that does.
Try to break the tutor. No attempts to make the AI generate hateful, harassing, sexual, or illegal content, and no trying to get around its safety guidelines.
Try to extract the system prompt. The instructions that shape the tutor are ours. Don't try to trick the app into revealing them or copying them out.
Attack the service. No scraping, flooding, probing, reverse-engineering, or otherwise disrupting the app, our servers, or the services behind them.
Share other people's private information. Don't type in someone else's personal or sensitive details.
Pass it off as your own product. No reselling, sublicensing, or presenting the service or its replies as your own service.

If a session is abused

There are no accounts, so there is nothing to ban. What we can do is suspend or limit a session that breaks these rules or attacks the service, and we may do that without warning. We may also limit traffic from a network that is sending far more than one person could, so that one bad actor can't take the app down for a whole school.

Your messages and reporting

You're responsible for what you type or attach in Mercurius. Because messages and photos are processed to generate replies (see the Privacy Policy), please don't share sensitive personal information. The tutor doesn't need it.

If a reply ever seems wrong, harmful, or inappropriate, report it from inside the app. The reply and the message you sent before it come straight to us for review. Reporting helps us keep Mercurius safe, and we read every report ourselves.

Ownership

The Mercurius name, logo, app, design, written curriculum, system prompt, and other materials are owned by the Mercurius team and protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the app for its intended educational purpose. Everything not expressly granted is reserved.

If you got the app from the App Store

These terms are between you and the Mercurius team, not Apple. They supplement — and where they conflict, defer to — Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement. Apple has no obligation to provide support or maintenance for the app and is not responsible for its content, any claims about it, or product-liability or legal claims relating to it. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

Provided "as is"

Mercurius is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied — including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We don't guarantee that the app will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that its answers will be correct or complete.

Limits on liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Mercurius team will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss arising from your reliance on AI-generated output, your use of (or inability to use) the app, or any decisions you make based on it. Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited to the greatest extent the law allows.

Changes and ending access

We may update the app or these terms as the product evolves. When we make material changes, we'll update the effective date above. Continuing to use Mercurius after changes take effect means you accept the revised terms. We may also suspend or end access to the app, in whole or in part, at any time — for example, to address misuse or to retire a feature.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute that isn't resolved informally will be handled in the state or federal courts located in Minnesota, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email support@trymercurius.com or visit the Support page. For questions about data and privacy specifically, see the Privacy Policy or email privacy@trymercurius.com.

Using Mercurius, in plain terms.