Terms of Service

Welcome to Ubuntu-AI. These terms apply to everyone who uses the platform: contributors, project managers, forum users, and visitors. By creating an account or using the site, you agree to these terms, our Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy, and Takedown Policy. Forum use is also governed by the Forums Content Policy and Forums User Agreement.

Our purpose

Artificial intelligence can threaten creative arts when it takes images and knowledge without permission or compensation. Ubuntu-AI is a research project, based on the African philosophy of Ubuntu, where African creatives—artists, makers, designers, and others—can experiment with forms of AI development and applications they own and govern. We do not sell a collective dataset to AI companies. Contributors keep rights to their data. If someone wants to buy a product or negotiate use of your work, they must deal with you. We do not take a cut of those deals.

Accounts

You must provide accurate information and keep your login details secure. You are responsible for activity under your account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

Project managers and invitations

Project managers invite contributors from groups they know (artist collectives, studios, NGOs, and similar). Vet people before you send an invitation. Strangers who appear asking to join should be checked carefully. Scams and impersonation are not allowed.

Your content

You keep ownership of work you upload. By uploading, you grant Ubuntu-AI a license to host and display that work on the service (including thumbnails). You confirm you have the right to publish it.

Project images and descriptions are public. Ubuntu-AI does not license contributor files to AI companies and does not sell a dataset. If someone wants to buy, license, or use your work (including for AI or media), they must contact you, pay you, and receive the materials from you. Donations to Ubuntu-AI and the OpenAI Foundation funding paid to participants do not grant anyone that license.

You may include a link to your studio or sales site so buyers can find you. Your listing is visible worldwide, so say in the description what you offer—from craft process to a live demo.

Participant funding

The OpenAI Foundation provided the first round of funding. We distributed that funding equally among all 400 participants as payment for uploading photos and filling out surveys. That payment compensated people for their work; it did not give funders a license to their files.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Upload work you do not have the right to publish
• Post hate, harassment, illegal content, malware, spam, or scams
• Impersonate others or misrepresent who you are
• Attempt to break into the service or other accounts

To ask us to remove content, see our Takedown Policy.

Prompts

When you create a project, we ask for a few short questions ("prompts") about your work and practice—for example, which plants make the dyes in Ghana's adinkra, or how Nigerians use digital technology in art. We keep these with your project. They are not shown on public project pages today. We may use them for research, to help people find your work on this platform, and to help you train image-generation tools you control (such as LoRA weights in UPCY). Ubuntu-AI does not send your prompts to AI companies or use them to train a shared model for anyone else.

Donations

Optional donations through Stripe support hosting and development. They do not purchase artwork or unlock a data feed. See our donate page.

Contact

Questions: support@ubuntu-ai.net or the contact form.