A Vocabulary For Expressing AI Usage Preferences

This document defines a vocabulary for expressing preferences regarding how digital assets are used by automated processing systems. This vocabulary allows for the declaration of restrictions or permissions for use of digital assets by such systems.¶
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶
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Discussion of this document takes place on the AI Preferences Working Group mailing list (mailto:ai-control@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ai-control/. Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ai-control/.¶
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2. Conventions and Definitions
3. Statements of Preference
3.2. Applicability and Effect
4. Vocabulary Definition
4.1. Automated Processing Category
4.2. Foundation Model Production Category
4.5. Vocabulary Extensions
5. Applying Statements of Preference
5.1. Combining Preferences
5.2. More Specific Instructions
6. Exemplary Serialization Format
6.1. Usage Category Labels
6.2. Preference Labels
6.4. Syntax Extensions
6.5. Processing Algorithm
6.6. Alternative Formats
7. Security Considerations
8. IANA Considerations
9.1. Normative References
9.2. Informative References
This document defines a vocabulary of preferences regarding how automated systems process digital assets -- in particular, the training and use of AI models. This vocabulary can be used to describe the types of uses that a declaring party may wish to explicitly restrict or allow.¶
The vocabulary is intended to be used in jurisdictions where expressing preferences results in legal obligations, as well as where there are no associated legal obligations. In either case, expressing preferences is without prejudice to applicable laws, including the applicability of exceptions and limitations to copyright.¶
Section 3 defines the data model for AI Preferences. Section 4 defines the terms of the vocabulary. Section 5 explains how to use AI Preferences in a data processing application, and Section 6 describes a way to serialize preferences into a string. Section 5 describes a process for determining the preference for a category of use.¶
[ATTACH] defines mechanisms to associate preferences with assets. Other means of association might be defined separately in the future.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
This document uses the following terms:¶
An engineered system of sufficient complexity that, for a given set of human-defined objectives, learns from data to generate outputs such as content, predictions, recommendations, or decisions.¶
The application of machine learning to data to produce or improve a model for an artificial intelligence system.¶
A digital file or stream of data, usually with associated metadata.¶