Behavioral Use Licensing for Responsible AI

TL;DR

This paper proposes behavioral use licensing as a legally enforceable method to promote responsible AI deployment, complementing ethical guidelines with practical licensing frameworks demonstrated through case studies.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of behavioral use licensing for AI, providing case studies and discussing integration with existing responsible AI guidelines.

Findings

Feasibility of behavioral use licensing demonstrated through case studies

Licensing can enforce responsible AI use beyond ethical guidelines

Potential for licensing to shape AI policy and norms

Abstract

With the growing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) for many different applications, the sharing of code, data, and models is important to ensure the replicability and democratization of scientific knowledge. Many high-profile academic publishing venues expect code and models to be submitted and released with papers. Furthermore, developers often want to release these assets to encourage development of technology that leverages their frameworks and services. A number of organizations have expressed concerns about the inappropriate or irresponsible use of AI and have proposed ethical guidelines around the application of such systems. While such guidelines can help set norms and shape policy, they are not easily enforceable. In this paper, we advocate the use of licensing to enable legally enforceable behavioral use conditions on software and code and provide several case studies that demonstrate the feasibility of behavioral use licensing. We envision how licensing may be implemented in accordance with existing responsible AI guidelines.