Re: BCP 78 policy / copyright / Generative AI / LLM .. is there a FAQ?

[Tobias Fiebig <[e-mail]>]

Moin,

I fully agree with Job on this point.

Would it maybe make sense to make this point explicit in a document?

With best regards,
Tobias

On Mon, 2025-08-18 at 12:50 +0000, Job Snijders wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> The IETF is committed to making all text available with a permissive
> license and with appropriate attribution. A fantastic objective I
> wholeheartedly support. As I understand things, generative AI/LLMs,
> by
> their nature, are likely unable to provide the necessary assurances
> that
> the generated material is compatible with the provisions of BCP 78
> (RFC5378) or that the original authors are properly attributed.
> 
> I can see that AI tooling is helping some folks with study &
> analysis,
> (which is great for them!), however I am not sure that submitting an
> internet-draft to the IETF that was (partially) generated using AI
> would
> be a wise path to follow: I recently spotted someone who contemplated
> submitting a 33,000+ word LLM-generated I-D for review to a working
> group. The machine certainly was not a subject matter expert - but at
> first glance it all looked legit, if such submissions were to happen
> they'd have the potential to take up a lot of time resources.
> 
> I personally would recommend working groups against adoption of AI
> generated text (mostly because of the potential for issues related to
> intellectual property). IMHO, handwritten originals are the way to go
> when using the IETF publication venue! :)
> 
> The FreeBSD project recently added some clarifications,
> result:
> https://reviews.freebsd.org/differential/changeset/?ref=1420532
> discussion: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D50650?id=156417
> 
> Other entities also provided documentation on the topic:
> https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/generative-ai
> https://www.apache.org/legal/generative-tooling.html
> 
> Is it documented somewhere for IETF newcomers that internet-draft
> submissions should not contain LLM/AI generated text? I imagine that
> similar clarifications for the IETF context along the lines of "text
> _about_ AI is fine, but text generated by AI has legal implications"
> would be very helpful.
> 
> Where can I point newcomers on this topic?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Job

-- 
Dr.-Ing. Tobias Fiebig
T [phone]
M [e-mail]
Pronouns: he/him/his