BigCode OpenRAIL-M License Agreement

The BigCode OpenRAIL-M license agreement is the latest version of existing responsible AI licenses (RAILs), as of 4th May 2023. This license agreement is based on its predecessor, the BigScience OpenRAIL-M license, which was designed under the BigScience research workshop.

The BigCode OpenRAIL-M license agreement was developed under BigCode, an open research collaboration organized by Hugging Face and ServiceNow to develop on an open and responsible basis a Large Language Model for code generation, StarCoder. Along with many other governance tools developed under the project, this license agreement promotes an open use of the technology while setting specific use restrictions for which the LLM cannot be used (e.g. malware generation; not disclaiming the output is machine-generated to users). 

Open: this license agreement allows royalty-free access and flexible downstream use and sharing of the model and modifications of it.

Responsible: the license agreement embeds a specific set of restrictions for the use of the model in identified critical scenarios. Use restrictions are informed by an evidence-based approach to ML development and use limitations which forces to draw a line between promoting wide access and use of ML against potential social costs stemming from harmful uses of the openly licensed AI artifact. Therefore, while benefiting from an open access to the ML model, the user will not be able to use the model for the specified restricted scenarios.

Promoting Documentation:The license agreement includes a documentation requirement aimed at fostering better documentation practices when distributing AI along the value chain. This mechanism might well articulate with upcoming AI regulations such as the EU AI Act.

For more information about the agreement please consult the FAQ.

The license agreement (i.e. the document itself) is licensed under a CC-BY-4.0 license, and thus can be freely adopted by stakeholders or modified for their specific AI material.