🧨 Diffusers’ Ethical Guidelines

Preamble

Diffusers provides pre-trained diffusion models and serves as a modular toolbox for inference and training.

Given its real case applications in the world and potential negative impacts on society, we think it is important to provide the project with ethical guidelines to guide the development, users’ contributions, and usage of the Diffusers library.

The risks associated with using this technology are still being examined, but to name a few: copyrights issues for artists; deep-fake exploitation; sexual content generation in inappropriate contexts; non-consensual impersonation; harmful social biases perpetuating the oppression of marginalized groups. We will keep tracking risks and adapt the following guidelines based on the community’s responsiveness and valuable feedback.

Scope

The Diffusers community will apply the following ethical guidelines to the project’s development and help coordinate how the community will integrate the contributions, especially concerning sensitive topics related to ethical concerns.

Ethical guidelines

The following ethical guidelines apply generally, but we will primarily implement them when dealing with ethically sensitive issues while making a technical choice. Furthermore, we commit to adapting those ethical principles over time following emerging harms related to the state of the art of the technology in question.

Examples of implementations: Safety features and Mechanisms

The team works daily to make the technical and non-technical tools available to deal with the potential ethical and social risks associated with diffusion technology. Moreover, the community’s input is invaluable in ensuring these features’ implementation and raising awareness with us.