Terms of Use

Effective Date: April 18, 2026

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Sycoindex platform, website, API, and related services (collectively, the "Service") operated by Sycoindex Inc. ("we," "us," or "our"). By accessing or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using any part of the Service, including browsing the website, using the API, or viewing leaderboard data, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, you must not use the Service.

2. Description of Service

Sycoindex provides AI safety scoring services, including but not limited to: safety and sycophancy scoring of AI model outputs, public leaderboards ranking AI models by safety metrics, API access for programmatic safety evaluation, compliance reports and child safety assessments, and browser-based tools for exploring model behavior.

3. API Usage & Rate Limits

Access to the Sycoindex API is subject to rate limits and usage tiers. Free tier users are limited to the request quotas published on our pricing page. Exceeding rate limits may result in temporary throttling or suspension of API access.

Paid plan subscribers are subject to the terms of their subscription agreement, including any usage caps, overage charges, and payment terms specified at the time of purchase.

You may not resell, sublicense, or redistribute API access or scoring results as a competing service without prior written consent from Sycoindex Inc.

4. Intellectual Property, Open Methodology & Trade Secrets

4.1 Open components

The following Sycoindex components are published openly and may be read, cited, and referenced for academic and compliance purposes, subject only to the attribution and no-misrepresentation terms in Sections 5 and 6:

• The PAI and Sycophancy rubric dimensions, their definitions, and scoring anchors (see methodology).
• The scoring formulas (how dimension scores aggregate into composite scores and risk levels).
• The inter-rater reliability framework, including the κ ≥ 0.700 gate and calibration design.
• The evaluation protocol description as published in methodology.html.

4.2 Proprietary components (Trade Secrets)

The following Sycoindex components are proprietary trade secrets of Sycoindex Inc., protected under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), 18 U.S.C. § 1836, and applicable state trade secret law:

• The verbatim judge prompts delivered to each frontier lab in the ensemble.
• The evaluation corpus (scenarios, transcripts, and adversarial probes).
• The calibration dataset and scoring anchors tied to specific transcripts.
• The judge ensemble weighting, aggregation code, and audit-chain implementation.
• All customer-submitted transcripts, API logs, and per-tenant data.

The distinction is intentional: the methodology is open so it can be cited and challenged by academics, regulators, and insurers; the corpus and scoring pipeline are proprietary so scores cannot be gamed by training against the test set. This mirrors the approach used by established benchmark consortia (e.g., MLCommons) that publish methodology while keeping evaluation data private.

You acknowledge that the proprietary components above constitute confidential information. Any unauthorized access to, disclosure of, reproduction of, or use of these trade secrets is strictly prohibited and may result in civil and criminal liability.

All content on the Service, including text, graphics, logos, data compilations, and software, is the property of Sycoindex Inc. or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws.

5. Accuracy & Disclaimers

Sycoindex safety scores are heuristic evaluations generated by our v1 beta scoring system. Scores are provided on an "as is" basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate, complete, or error-free.

Scores do not constitute legal advice, medical advice, professional certification, or any form of warranty regarding the safety of an AI model. You should not rely solely on Sycoindex scores when making decisions about AI deployment, regulatory compliance, or child safety.

WE MAKE NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

6. Prohibited Uses

You agree not to:

Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the proprietary components listed in Section 4.2 (verbatim judge prompts, evaluation corpus, calibration dataset, scoring pipeline code). The published rubric and methodology (Section 4.1) remain openly citable under normal academic fair-use terms.

Scrape, crawl, or use automated means to collect data from the Service beyond what is permitted by the API and your usage tier.

Misrepresent, fabricate, or alter Sycoindex scores, badges, or reports when presenting them to third parties.

Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable laws or regulations.

7. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SYCOINDEX INC., ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIMS ARISING UNDER THESE TERMS SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US, IF ANY, IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM.

8. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Sycoindex Inc. and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any rights of a third party.

9. Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms. Upon termination, your right to use the Service ceases immediately. We may also revoke API keys and delete account data associated with terminated accounts.

10. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any disputes arising under these Terms shall be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Delaware.

11. Changes to Terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time. When we make changes, we will update the "Effective Date" at the top of this page and post the revised Terms on our website. Your continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

12. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, please contact us:

Sycoindex Inc.
Email: chris@sycoindex.org