Terms of use

What ux-phi is

ux-phi is a set of interactive philosophy simulations. You talk to AI-played historical figures in reconstructed settings. The philosophers are portrayals, not the people: the words are generated, and although the simulations are built against primary texts and quotation is checked, nothing a character says should be cited as though a real philosopher said it. Quote the texts, not the personas.

Accounts

• You need an account for progress to follow you across devices. Keep your sign-in details to yourself.
• One account per person. Class seats are account-bound and cannot be shared.
• You must be old enough to hold an account under the law where you live. [TODO: set a minimum age. 13 is the usual floor; 16 avoids UK GDPR child-consent complications entirely. This also decides whether ux-phi could ever be used in a school rather than a university, which brings a different regime again.]

Class seats

If your instructor enrols you, a seat gives you unlimited conversation on that class’s simulations for the length of the section. What your instructor can see is set out on the enrolment page before you take the seat, and again in the privacy notice. A section cannot be switched to graded after students have joined it.

Your coursework relationship is with your institution, not with ux-phi. Marks, deadlines, academic misconduct, and appeals are your instructor’s and your institution’s business.

Membership and payment

Paid tiers are handled through Patreon under Patreon’s own terms. Cancel there and your tier lapses at the end of the period you have paid for. [TODO: refund position. Patreon governs the charge, but say plainly what happens if someone cancels mid-term, and confirm that a student holding a class seat is never charged for class access.]

Acceptable use

• Do not attempt to extract another user’s data, or to reach instructor or administrative surfaces you have not been granted.
• Do not use ux-phi to harass anyone. In paired discussions and judged debates you are talking to actual classmates.
• Do not scrape, resell, or redistribute the simulation content. The scenarios, personas, and engine prose are ux-phi’s work.
• Do not use automated clients against the simulations without asking first.

Your work

What you write stays yours. ux-phi stores it to run the service and, in a class section, to show your instructor what the consent form says it will show them. It is not used to train AI models. Research use of class data is separate: it requires an agreement with your institution and, in most cases, ethics approval and your specific consent — general course consent is not research consent, and the two will never be bundled.

Availability, and what is not promised

ux-phi is run by one person and depends on providers outside its control. There is no uptime guarantee. Simulations change, and a simulation you have played may be revised or withdrawn. Keep your own copy of anything you need for assessment; do not treat ux-phi as the only home for work you will be marked on.

AI-generated content can be wrong. Evaluations are drafts for your instructor, never an automatic grade, and a person decides your mark.

Ending things

You can stop using ux-phi at any time and ask for your account to be deleted. Accounts may be suspended for breaching the acceptable-use section above. [TODO: governing law and jurisdiction — presumably England and Wales.]

Privacy notice