Acceptable Use Policies for Foundation Models

Abstract

As foundation models have accumulated hundreds of millions of users, developers have begun to take steps to prevent harmful types of uses. One salient intervention that foundation model developers adopt is acceptable use policies—legally binding policies that prohibit users from using a model for specific purposes. This paper identifies acceptable use policies from 30 foundation model developers, analyzes the use restrictions they contain, and argues that acceptable use policies are an important lens for understanding the regulation of foundation models. Taken together, developers’ acceptable use policies include 127 distinct use restrictions; the wide variety in the number and type of use restrictions may create fragmentation across the AI supply chain. Companies also employ acceptable use policies to prevent competitors or specific industries from making use of their models. Developers alone decide what constitutes acceptable use, and rarely provide transparency about how they enforce their policies. In practice, acceptable use policies are difficult to enforce, and scrupulous enforcement can act as a barrier to researcher access and limit beneficial uses of foundation models. Acceptable use policies for foundation models are an early example of self-regulation that have a significant impact on the market for foundation models and the AI ecosystem.

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